BellaOnline Forums Books and Music Classic Rock Definitions

Okay I've read a few posts in the various music forums and there seems to be a vague-ness about music. So my question to you is what is or what qualifies as Classic Rock compared to Heavy Metal/POP etc.

I don' think anyone can really quantify it. There is no set year to year guideline for classic rock. I usually consider anything from the early 50's to the early 70's as classic rock, but other people may have their own definitions. Kids may see 80's music as classic rock, others may include late 70's music in the category. I wrote one article about how even grunge music has been put into this category by some people.

Okay but surely you have to define the music in that era to seperate categories. In the 70's there was Rock, there was also Blues, Pop, Classical, surely you can't lump it all together and say anything from that era is Classic Rock?!

As far as years go - I wonder if they (the ever present "they") categorize it the same way as cars. 20 years or older is considered a "classic" (so that would now put us into the 80's as being classic now)

Rock (in my opinion) is determined by the types of instruments used and the band actually playing them (as opposed to pop bands having the instruments played for them by other and they just sing.)

A rock band is at least a 4 piece group; drums, lead guitar, bass guitar and a lead singer. And the guitars are not acoustic but electric.

Blues and jazz tends to have brass in their group (like trumpet and saxophone) and classical has strings and sometimes woodwinds (like violin & flute)

I'm sure I could find a "real" definition for each category - but it would probably be pretty close to what I have desribed above.

That kinda makes some sense now thanks Michelle, just when you see people refering to all sorts of different types of music as Classic Rock and you think Hmmm now I didn't listen to them and I liked Rock...

Well yes, there are different types of music. I wouldn't lump all music of that era into classic rock- just the rock music. I don't necessarily separate rock and pop in my mind. I think that pop and all of the other subcategories are just a part of the whole rock tapestry.