Eras of Classic Rock

Ah but just because someone does something, does not mean they have a need to do it. I think we do it for fun.

As a music devotee I find it very satisfying to compare and contrast music. Compartmentalizing it by genre and style is nothing more than that: a way to compare and contrast. I personally would not favor a method that asserts Metallica, Beyonce, and Slayer are all just "music" when it seems clear to me that Metallica and Slayer have a lot more in common with each other than they do with Beyonce. I find categories, while not strictly necessary, extremely helpful.

The birth and growth of MTV is an important part of the evolution of music,whether anyone wants to admit it or not.

The music video was by no means a new concept. Music video had already been going on for decades.

What MTV did was give them a home. Someplace specifically designed for artists to peddle their wares. And it changed the way artists went about making their music.

Whether that was a good or a bad thing is up to the listener/viewer.

Alot of us, who cultivated our love of music before MTV was born, by and large, think MTV did more harm than good.

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me personally, it's more a case of MTV changed how my favorite bands approached their music.

Aerosmith got cartoonish.

Chicago's horn section was castrated.

The Boss shaved, took a bath and went to the gym.

Elton John got booooorrrrrrrrrrring.

I'm not gonna go into a full list, but you folks get my meaning. They trimmed off the rough, uneven, unpolished edges that made us 'old timers' love them in the first place.

The bands born because of MTV are numerous, and I like a bunch of 80s music. It's got some merit, because it helped cultivate new, untapped genres. New Wave was really, really young and it just blew up when those bands got visual exposure.


In my Music History book, MTV is an era, with its contributions to the evolution of music, but I don't consider it to be a 'Classic Rock' era.

That's very interesting, Vehicle! Love your avatar by the way. While I'm not religious, His Holiness's philosophies were crucial for me in my dark days.

I'm not a fan of music videos in general, they just sort of rub me the wrong way in general. But clearly I can't deny how big of an influence music videos were in the 80s. Today I believe that has subsided, as music videos today have barely a fraction of the audience that they did in those days.

About MTV in 2 minutes and 30 seconds, and it is very, very true!

Dio's right, it's not Heavy Metal.


It's Metal Lite. Kinda like Heavy Metal, only with less b@lls and more eyeliner.

Yeah, it used to be so agrevating to have to explain what I was talking about for 45 minutes after I mentioned that I liked Heavy Metal. I stopped even saying it because I got tired of people reaching for their Motley Crue or Winger when I did.

Phil B. said:

I have to admit that I have a total distaste in attempts to "classify" and "categorize" music into nice little corrals.

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I think the responses, so far, justify your distaste, if nothing else.

I'm guilty of it classifying. I sort them out how I hear them. If there are people don't believe in that sort of thing, then rock on, brother.

I don't try to get people go conform to what I think, though. They have their neat little corrals, I have mine.

I used to mediate, and I can't count how many arguments I've sat through when the topic is "Green Day isn't punk".

I don't get involved in any type of discussion like that. It's a fruitless endeavor. You'll never convince a person to change their mind, when their mind has been set about something as long as yours has.

Besides, who cares, really? I just said a couple posts back that 80s metal has no b@lls. Yea? So? Doesn't change how anyone else feels, does it?

Punk stopped Rock dead in its tracks in the late 70's
and as left an indelable mark ever since

BELLE 77 said:

Punk stopped Rock dead in its tracks in the late 70's

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Not in the USA, it didn't. Punk rock was never mainstream enough to stop anything in its tracks. I never heard bands like the Ramones until about a decade later, when I became interested in hearing them. They were never on the radio, at least in the midwest.