| February 11th, 2006 08:06 AM |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
Teens Save Classic Rock
BRIAN HIATT
Feb 09, 2006
Rolling Stone online
A new generation of fans turn to Hendrix, Floyd and Zeppelin Like countless parents before him, Steven Tyler is shocked at the music that's been blaring out of his fifteen-year-old son's bedroom lately. But the Aerosmith frontman can hardly disapprove. "I walk by at night and my son is listening to Zeppelin stuff, like 'Black Dog,'" Tyler says. "He's turned all his friends on to Cream, and they're all into [Aerosmith's] Toys in the Attic. I told him, 'I can't believe you're listening to this.'"
Though classic rock is in no danger of edging out emo and hip-hop on most teenagers' playlists, a growing number of kids are also making room for Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and the Beatles. At the same time, electric-guitar sales are soaring, with the cheapest models nearly doubling in sales from 2003 to 2004. "Kids go through hard rock, hip-hop and pop very quickly, and then they're hungry for something else," says E Street Band guitarist and garage-rock DJ Steven Van Zandt -- who gets hundreds of e-mails from teens thanking him for introducing them to bands like the Kinks. "They always end up coming to [classic] rock & roll."
Nine percent of kids ages twelve to seventeen listened to classic-rock radio in any given week in 2005 -- marking a small but significant increase during the past three years -- with a total of 2.3 million teens tuning in each week, according to the radio-ratings company Arbitron. And some markets have seen more dramatic growth: Teen listenership at New York's Q104.3, the nation's largest classic-rock station, has jumped twenty percent since fall 2002. "It really started in the past five years," says Q104.3 DJ Maria Milito. "You get these boys calling to request Hendrix whose voices haven't changed yet." Van Zandt's Underground Garage, heard on 140 radio stations across the country on Sunday nights, draws a third of its audience from listeners under twenty-five.
For teens, not all classic rock is created equal. According to the market-research firm NPD, kids ages thirteen to seventeen bought twenty percent of all Floyd and Zeppelin albums sold from 2002 to 2005, and seventeen percent of Hendrix and Queen discs but accounted for just three percent of Creedence Clearwater Revival sales, six percent of Rolling Stones sales and a paltry one percent of Cat Stevens sales. "There's such a force and power to a band like Zeppelin," says Rhino Records marketing vice president Mike Engstrom, adding that young buyers drove sales for the label's 2003 DVD collection of live Zep.
Young fans' enthusiasm helps evergreen discs such as Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and AC/DC's Back in Black sell thousands of copies a week. "Week after week, a whole new group of people are discovering these albums," says Jeff Jones, executive vice president of Sony BMG's reissue label Legacy Recordings.
Veteran artists are also seeing a surprising number of young faces at their concerts; at one Tom Petty show at New York's Jones Beach last June, kids as young as fourteen showed up in packs and sang along fervently. "I don't know how to explain it," Petty says.
"We're now seeing an audience that goes from sixteen to sixty," says Allman Brothers manager Bert Holman. "Kids feel they're seeing something legendary and special." Classic-rock mainstay George Thorogood, meanwhile, has had to change his set lists to accommodate the growing number of kids at his shows. "I've had to clean it up a little bit," he says. "It's like, 'Cocaine Blues'? Maybe not."
Why would kids born in the Nineties turn to timeworn guitar anthems? For all of the vibrant rock recorded in the past ten years -- from pop punk to neogarage to dance rock -- no new, dominant sound has emerged since grunge in the early Nineties. "I can't think of a record recently that blew people's minds," says Jeff Peretz, a Manhattan producer and guitar teacher. "And there aren't really any guitar heroes around anymore. Kids don't come in and say, 'I want to play like John Mayer.'"
"There is such a drought that kids are going back and rediscovering the Who and Sabbath," says Paul Green, who runs the Paul Green School of Rock Music, which has expanded from a single Philadelphia branch in 1998 to schools in twelve other cities.
At the same time, the Internet has made forty-year-old hits as accessible as current chart-toppers. "I started to see this as a real trend when Napster started around 1999," says Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry, who has two teenage sons. Last year, teens even started believin' again in Journey's power ballads: They pushed the band's 1981 song "Don't Stop Believin' " into iTunes' Top Ten after it popped up during a romantic moment on MTV's wildly popular reality show, Laguna Beach. It has since sold more than 200,000 digital singles. "It makes me so happy that a new generation would embrace something we believed in," says former Journey singer Steve Perry. "Back when we were first successful, we were dissed -- but time has told a different story."
Old rock has become fashionable, too. The years-old couture and thrift-shop vogue for vintage rock T-shirts recently trickled down to mall retailers catering to teens, with Doors and Rolling Stones shirts selling fast at stores such as Hot Topic.
"It's almost a cyclical thing -- as music ages, it can become cool again," says Rilo Kiley frontwoman Jenny Lewis, who covers the Traveling Wilburys' "Handle With Care" on her new solo album, Rabbit Fur Coat. But Lewis also sees a simpler reason for the trend: "It's called classic rock for a reason -- it's classic. It's just really great music."
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| February 11th, 2006 08:20 AM |
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| Nellcote |
Long Live Rock!(insert vintage Roger Daltrey vocal here) |
| February 11th, 2006 06:21 PM |
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| Paranoid_Android |
I was looking thru my nephews high school yearbook,(he's 19) and they had an afterschool "Classic Rock Club"...how wierd is that?!?
I am 42 ( 16 yrs old in 1980)...that would be like me being in a Big Band/Boogie Woogie club...or a DOO-WOP club...Inconcievable!!! |
| February 11th, 2006 09:05 PM |
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| Prodigal Son |
Ok, so Floyd is overrated and Zep gets way more pub than the Stones and we know who the superior band is. Still, it's a start. As long as the Eagles, Boston, Journey (that was a bit troubling for people to be requesting) and Styx don't start becoming huge with the young folks (such as m'self!). |
| February 11th, 2006 11:58 PM |
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| Soldatti |
quote:
Prodigal Son wrote:
Ok, so Floyd is overrated and Zep gets way more pub than the Stones and we know who the superior band is. Still, it's a start. As long as the Eagles, Boston, Journey (that was a bit troubling for people to be requesting) and Styx don't start becoming huge with the young folks (such as m'self!).
About a month ago, I played my old copy of Floyd's last album (Division Bell) to some of my friends, about 5-6 of them. They never heard the album before and they only know a bunch of their songs. 2 guys are PF fans now, and the others got copies too. The Floyd music is very popular among kids, apparently they like the emotion of their songs. |
| February 12th, 2006 12:11 AM |
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| keefjunkie |
its true
im 16 and saw petty this summer and have a doors shirt on currently..
ive had every floyd for like 5 years
word |
| February 12th, 2006 12:11 AM |
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| keefjunkie |
OH and i post on a stones board! |
| February 12th, 2006 12:37 AM |
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| Prodigal Son |
Hey don't get me wrong I like Pink Floyd. But I can name 50 artists I prefer. Their music reaches people who enjoy gloominess, casual drug taking and anger-most people who like this stuff are young and they are more popular in the UK than the US. I guess young people are not worldly enough to understand, or appreciate, the Stones or Dylan or Van Morrison or Hank Williams and so on. You know, artists who reach deep into the roots of American popular music in the 20th century? Rather than basing their sound on psychedelic drugs and loud amplified noises. |
| February 12th, 2006 02:03 AM |
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| keefjunkie |
quote:
Prodigal Son wrote:
Hey don't get me wrong I like Pink Floyd. But I can name 50 artists I prefer. Their music reaches people who enjoy gloominess, casual drug taking and anger-most people who like this stuff are young and they are more popular in the UK than the US. I guess young people are not worldly enough to understand, or appreciate, the Stones or Dylan or Van Morrison or Hank Williams and so on. You know, artists who reach deep into the roots of American popular music in the 20th century? Rather than basing their sound on psychedelic drugs and loud amplified noises.
I also have every stones and dylan album.... and i like van morrison
you really seem to enjoy stereotyping |
| February 12th, 2006 05:10 AM |
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| corgi37 |
I think this is great news, despite its mainly LEd & PF. But, hey, those bands appeal to the pimply ones. Its a great start. Come on, whats better? An hour of Motown, or an hour of Black eyed peas? Anything from 1969 (Woodstock soundtrack included) is still miles better than anything else America can produce today.
I make a prediction. Nothing released in 2006 will be remembered in 10 years. But Led Zep 4 will still be selling. And, hopefully people dont forget Meatloaf. |
| February 13th, 2006 10:49 AM |
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| Lazy Bones |
quote:
corgi37 wrote:
And, hopefully people dont forget Meatloaf.
I would do anything for love...but I won't do that!
[Edited by Lazy Bones] |
| February 13th, 2006 11:25 AM |
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| Sidewinder |
It's good to read stuff like that. I can say I am one of these people that the article is describing. Now, it's Stones, Zeppelin, Who, Cream..... all the way. You get the picture.
And, as a bit of a surprise, my blues show on the college radio station is a hit. |
| February 13th, 2006 11:47 AM |
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| Candace Youngblood |
I think this is great. Led Zep and the Doors in particular, seem to appeal to the teenyboppers no matter what year it is. I was a teen in the nineties and I managed to seek out cool music on my own, falling in love with the Beatles, the Stones, Pink Floyd, Hendrix, the Dead, Zepplin, etc. Some of those bands mean even more to me now, and some of them I grew out of.
As I got older I learned to appreciate blues and jazz.
80% of the music I listen to was made before I was born or when I was very young.
I like it that way!
It is hard for me to name many current bands/artists that I really like. Fiona Apple...Beck...Phish although they are now defunct...System of a Down. That's about it. That's not counting people like Dylan that are still making great music.
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| February 13th, 2006 02:23 PM |
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| doo doo doo Dude |
The reason why so many of these kids initially like Led Zeppelin & Pink Floyd is because it is music for virgins.
Once they start fucking, they graduate to the Rolling Stones.
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| February 13th, 2006 02:34 PM |
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| Break The Spell |
quote:
doo doo doo Dude wrote:
The reason why so many of these kids initially like Led Zeppelin & Pink Floyd is because it is music for virgins.
Once they start fucking, they graduate to the Rolling Stones.
I got into the Stones years before buying a record by Zep, Floyd, or getting my driver's license for that matter. I must have been a horny lil' thing. |
| February 13th, 2006 02:40 PM |
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| Joey |
" I must have been a horny lil' thing. "
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| February 13th, 2006 02:44 PM |
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| Break The Spell |
quote:
Joey wrote:
" I must have been a horny lil' thing. "
With a gaze like that, the sheep are anything but safe!! |
| February 13th, 2006 02:49 PM |
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| doo doo doo Dude |
U2 is also for virgins. |
| February 13th, 2006 02:52 PM |
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| Candace Youngblood |
quote:
doo doo doo Dude wrote:
The reason why so many of these kids initially like Led Zeppelin & Pink Floyd is because it is music for virgins.
Once they start fucking, they graduate to the Rolling Stones.
while it's a nice quote, I think you're wrong.
I am perfectly capable of simultaneously loving Pink Floyd and sex.
And Led Zepplin has lots of sex in it, too. |
| February 13th, 2006 03:02 PM |
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| Joey |
" With a gaze like that, the sheep are anything but safe!!"
Sheep Lie .......................
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| February 13th, 2006 03:14 PM |
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| Break The Spell |
quote:
Joey wrote:
" With a gaze like that, the sheep are anything but safe!!"
Sheep Lie .......................
Mysteriously, that sheep has a rather big smile. More on why the sheep is smiling and people who haved survived the weekend with Cheney at 11... |
| February 13th, 2006 03:35 PM |
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| Joey |
" Mysteriously, that sheep has a rather big smile. More on why the sheep is smiling and people who haved survived the weekend with Cheney at 11..."
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| February 13th, 2006 06:22 PM |
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| Soldatti |
quote:
doo doo doo Dude wrote:
The reason why so many of these kids initially like Led Zeppelin & Pink Floyd is because it is music for virgins.
Once they start fucking, they graduate to the Rolling Stones.
I don't know, Zepp not even close IMO. |
| February 13th, 2006 06:28 PM |
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| nanatod |
"I don't know, Zepp not even close IMO."
Soldatti, you may be right.
Except for Nightflight, Tangerine, and Boogie with Stu, everytime I hear Led Zep being overplayed on classic rock radio, I feel that is one less chance to hear Deep Purple, UFO, Rainbow, and Alice Cooper.
Maybe it is that radio programmers have a much narrower mindset than listeners.
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| February 14th, 2006 09:16 AM |
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| corgi37 |
No. I think LEd Zep's massive album sales compared to the rather flaky artists you mention might have some thing to do with it. |
| February 14th, 2006 09:28 AM |
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| nanatod |
Deep Purple flaky?
Give me a "flaky artist" anytime, whether it's Richie Blackmore, Bob Dylan, Mick Taylor or Ron Wood. Wasn't Chuck Berry "flaky?" |
| February 14th, 2006 06:11 PM |
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| Soldatti |
quote:
corgi37 wrote:
No. I think LEd Zep's massive album sales compared to the rather flaky artists you mention might have some thing to do with it.
You nailed it. |
