i think so... right now, the only late 80's band they play on either of our CR stations is GnR... if the criterion for "classic" rock is 20 years (and i'm just speculating there) , i'm a little surprised there has not been any pearl jam or nirvana

i guess i could send an email or FB the stations and get their actual policy for airplay... i know one of the stations bills itself as playing the best of the 70s and 80s... but they also play good 60s stuff also

and there it is... stones come in at #3 with gimme shelter

Since you don't listen to the radio I'd be surprised if you heard ANY song played on ANY station.

the comment was based on who had not yet made the list...process of elimination doncha know (that plus the pictures at the top of the article were jagger, tyler, young, and page)

There is no standard as to what constitutes 'classic rock', something is played on a 'classic rock' station if the people who program the music, and the audience WANT it to be played on the station.

That being said, I think the '25 year rule' applies for all nostalgia.....the 20 year rule is that people are nostalgic for whatever they experienced when growing up, and thus since a generation is approximately equal to 25 years, the generation that is 'in charge' gets to set the nostalgia agenda, and thus whatever was popular 25 years ago is ripe for nostalgia today. That is why the 1980's were all about 60's nostalgia, the 1990's were all about 70's nostalgia, and today is all about 80's nostalgia.

Think about it....in the 80's it was all 'let's remake stuff from the 60's', in the 90's it was all 'let's remake stuff from the 70's' and today it's all 'let remake stuff from the 80's', which is why the big film franchises of today are things like GI Joe, Transformers and there are plans to make movies of Thundercats, He Man and so forth....

For me "Classic Rock" would begin with songs and artists such as these:

Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry
Jailhouse Rock - Elvis Presley
Rock Around The Clock - Bill Haley & His Comets
Blueberry Hill - Fats Domino
Tutti-Frutti - Little Richard
That'll Be The Day or Peggy Sue - Buddy Holly & the Crickets
Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On - Jerry Lee Lewis
Bye Bye Love - Everly Brothers
What'd I Say - Ray Charles
Bo Diddley - Bo Diddley
Summertime Blues - Eddie Cochran
Blue Suede Shoes - Carl Perkins
I Only Have Eyes For You - Flamingos
For Your Precious Love - Jerry Butler & the Impressions
Yakety Yak - Coasters
You Send Me - Sam Cooke
There Goes My Baby - Drifters

I doubt there's a single 'classic rock' station in this country that would play any of those songs

the station we had that did play those, and other 50s/60s songs, has been gone now for probably 10-15 years... 'twas a shame as we no longer hear those songs... oh well, there's always youtube if i wanted to hear them bad enough

You gotta go with what people want to hear....the 50's were 60 years ago now....the 60's were 50 years ago....did you hear songs from the 20's on the radio in the 60's? The 'classic' or 'oldies' station is always going to be whatever was popular 20-30 years ago......

Yep, they're oldies.

Oh. Yeah. U2. I didn't think of them, but you're right. Thats very surprising.

It seems to me that back in the late 80's and early 90's, the local classic rock station used to play lots of 70's arena rock and even early 80's stuff like, say, Rush or Foreigner. So back then, classic could be less than 10 years old.

Unfortunately, the main audience who would be interested in such a station are filling up the cemeteries right now...it's always the people in their 30's and 40's who dominate pop culture, which is why the 'classic rock' station are focused on the 70's and 80's the 50's and 60's are forgotten......in 10 years, 'classic rock' will be 80's and 90's with the 70's forgotten...indeed that's already happening to some extent...

I wouldn't even call them rock music.

there was a differentiation between classic rock and the oldies station... always ... there might be an occasional overlap in songs...but very seldom... i assumed when their rating numbers did not justify any advertising to be done in order to make the station profitable they concluded there weren't enough alive or interested in listening to the music of the 50s and 60s...so they had to quit operating

I remember in 2006 when the show 'Psych' went on the air on the USA Network, the main characters grew up in the 1980's, and 80's pop culture references are a huge part of the show....and I remember thinking 'well, finally there's a show on TV that makes pop culture references I can relate to'......and now it seems that every show on TV is based 80's nostalgia....I am now seeing references to stuff from the 80's everywhere I go, at Cracked.com all the articles talk about stuff like the Transformers, He-Man, GI Joe, classic Nintendo games, i.e. the stuff that I remember growing up...it's everywhere now....and I finally realize why that is.....my generation, the generation that grew up in the 80's, is now in the position of being the 'leading' generation, we are the people who are in charge of everything, that's why pop culture is all about 80's nostalgia....give it 10-15 years and we will be replaced and all the pop culture references will be about stuff from the 90's and we won't understand them anymore....and TV and movies will no longer seem familiar and easy to relate to, instead they will seem exotic and foreign, and even a little frightening....

Holy crap, I now understand what my grandmother was talking about!

I wouldn't call Simon and Garfunkel rock music, but there we go.

Simon and Garfunkel are technically classified as 'folk rock', which was a whole genre of its own in the mid 60's

I don't get why U2 wouldn't be considered rock music.

Yeah, that wasn't clear to me either.

Purely local little anecdote as an aside: The local classic rock station here used to have some sort of "battle of the bands" where they would play bands in little head-to-head competitions and I think fans would call in with their favorites or whatever, and I think U2 was always among the top tier.