AlanHB

I usually attach the term "classic rock" to the very start of the genre, with Chuck Berry/Bill Haley in the 50s/60s. But its interesting that no sub-genre argument has occured in this thread, whereas if it was say about thrash metal vs death metal there would be some argument occuring.

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MaggaraMarine

The thing is, don't just pick a genre and start writing similar music than the bands you hear. Make something new. Don't copy the artists. Write what you hear in your head. If it's rock, OK. If it's metal, OK. If it's rap, OK. Write it if you like it. You just need to do something new and not copy all the rock (or whatever genre) cliches. Rock is not dead. I mean, people always say that and there are still new rock bands and rock songs made. OK, there's something in rock that is dead - rock is now approved everywhere. It's no more the music that your parents hate. Because your parents listened to rock when they were young. Even in the 80s some people thought that rock was evil music (for example they burned rock albums). But not any more. That's what's dead in rock. But people still listen to rock and rock bands have sold the most albums and have the most memorable classic songs.

But really, don't think about if it sells or not. Just write the goddamn music. Write it if you like it. And if you like it, it's pretty sure there's somebody else who likes it too.

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food1010

Led Zeppelin and AC/DC are really just blues-rock. There's plenty of blues-rock going around today.

Sure, classic rock is dead, because by definition classic rock is rock from a previous generation. Classic rock isn't a genre, it's an era.

I get what you're saying, but really the only way anyone created anything original was by listening to many different types of music and using the elements that appealed to them.

So really, you just create a blend of all the sounds you like to hear, and that is how you discover "your sound." You don't do it by completely ignoring everything you've learned and trying to force something "different." You will inevitably create something original simply because you have your own set of tastes and preferences.

Unless of course you blatantly copy specific songs. Don't do that.

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koslack

A) Wondering about what the music industry is doing when you're trying to break into it is like worrying about wearing the wrong pants when you buy a winning lottery ticket.

B) Some of the biggest rock bands in the world right now are just classic rock ripoffs. Kings of Leon? The Black Keys? Does that mean that they'll still be popular in a year or two? Who the hell knows? I'm sure Faster Pussycat thought their music would be top of the charts forever, too.

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Xiaoxi

When Bach was writing his thousands and thousands of dense fugues, preludes, cantatas, chorales, etc, baroque was practically dead. Most people were already moving on to the simpler, more transparent sound of the classical style. But he did it anyway and only in retrospective did we discover THAT was baroque at its full potential, and in some ways, western music at its full potential.

Yes, I'm implying that you have the potential to be the Bach of classic rock.

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Analyzing Brahms: Insights to Help Us Improve Our Music

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91RG350

I'll put it out there and say that Pearl Jam is not grunge.... rather, a rock band who happened to be from Seattle at a pivotal point in music history. Tell me Ten aint a rock album....

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Sleepy__Head

Just like Led Zeppelin did.

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20Tigers

I don't think anyone said it wasn't rock.

Oh, and grunge is rock anyway so its kind of a moot point.

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Explaining Modes part 1
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MaggaraMarine

The influences come automatically. You can't write anything without any influences. But you shouldn't consciously think "this needs a bit more AC/DC" or something. You want it to sound like your own music. And you really shouldn't try to be yourself. You need to be yourself. Just write what's in your head. Don't try to find your style. You are your style.

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bigblockelectra

Does "classic" refer to the vintage of the music or the sound? Can a band really call themselves "classic rock" if they form in 2013 and release an album? Probably not.

You always hear people whine about having no good music to listen to and then refer to older bands. Maybe you could be successful doing a traditional rock sound with a lot of riff based music.

80's pop, modern pop, disco, etc...all very trendy. Some of it is enjoyable and all of it is/was very popular. Some of it will be remembered, but many of the songs were one-hit wonders. It is hard to say whether people will talk about MGMT or Mumford and Sons 15 years from now. Very different bands, but both based off of recent trends.

As long as it is good, people will like it. And if there is any degree of popularity on the internet, it is possible to get noticed. To a record company, views on youtube don't necessarily mean paying customers but it would at least demonstrate that there are still people who like traditional sounding hard rock (and might pay for it).

Good luck

91RG350

Yeah.... I hear ya.... I wasnt replying to anyone in particular on this thread about Ten.... you just hear it referred to as "seminal grunge album Ten"..... and I really find it hard to label as grunge

To TS.... if you listen to a lot of classic rock.... it will come out in your playing... what other people said about influences is correct..... be true to yourself...and success will take care of itself..... wannabe cookie cutter formulaic musicians are easily spotted by the industry....

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HotspurJr

Ha. My point is Pearl Jam's first album has a tremendous amount of SRV/Hendrix/Cream influence. Nobody thinks about it as "classic rock" because it was part of the grunge movement, but (before they adopted a more punk orientation starting with their third album) that's really what they were playing.

They wanted to play stuff that sounded like music that had gone out of style decades earlier, and they did. They made it their own, but the influences are obvious.

Most of the Seattle scene was doing something different: Cobain's punk-saturated pop. Soundgarden and Alice in Chains doing an aggressive take on dropped-D metal. Yeah, they all had a production aesthetic that was similar, but Pearl Jam had far more in common with the rock of the 70s than they did with a lot of the other Seattle bands of the time.

20Tigers

Haha. Okay. Before this post I was actually taking you seriously. Now I just realize you don't have much grasp on the lineage of rock.

To claim that they were playing a type of rock that had gone out of style decades earlier and to describe that style as having clear SRV/Hendrix/Cream influences confirms that you don't know what you're talking about.

SRV had five studio albums all of which went platinum and some of which went double platinum. The frist was Texas Flood 1983 and the last was an album with his brother released in 1990. He died in August 1990 and a posthumous album The Sky is Crying was released in 91 the same year Pearl Jam's "Ten" was released.

So you see how, in light of this information, your statements show a severe lack of knowledge in regard to what you are talking about dude? The same argument can be made in regard to the Cream influence. Clapton after all was huge throughout the 80s. His popularity has never really waned.

Then there are all the bands I mentioned in my last post, some of whom have even more obvious and direct Hendrix/Cream style influences in their music than Pearl Jam.

Pearl Jam didn't bring anything back. They just did what they did at the time they did it. It wasn't a revival of any kind nor was it anything new. It was just good, and it was them doing their thing.

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Explaining Modes part 1
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chronowarp

pearl jam: herrryuhh!

Also, please don't play classic rock, it's terrible, and you should be ashamed.

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GaryBillington

That depends on your definition of classic rock

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evolucian

lol @ the Mike Patton quip. Unfortunately no one is quite as experimental as him/Faith no more/Mr Bungle... imo. But yeah, Wolfmother captures the essence of the classics, as does Black Keys and the others mentioned in the thread.

Play what you feel you must play TS. Don't let anyone stand in your way either, except the bouncer bunny throwin you out the club.

CryogenicHusk

So it could be anything from The Beach Boys to Devo and everything in between, according to wikipedia?

For stuff like AC/DC, Deep Purple and Led Zep: I think there's some of that still going. Black Country Communion do fairly well (I've seen their albums, not only at the Guitar Center, but also Target) for being a band that has that 70s sound.

I was wondering why there aren't more bands with that kind of sound but with younger members (talking generation Y or younger I guess) and then the other day I heard this band called "Bright Light Social Hour" being played at a "hip" (wouldn't say it was a hipster place but all of the people working there had tattoos and piercings and the guys working the bar looked like skaters, but there was also a kind of sports bar vibe to it) pub/restaurant and I thought it sounded pretty cool and very classic rock-influenced, but I could still tell it sounded new. I don't think they're very famous...

Anyway, as it has been said in this thread already: play what you want to play. Maybe things will fall into place and you become relatively famous. Maybe they won't, but at least you'll have a nice time and probably develop a following made of people who genuinely like your music for its sound, not just for it being the flavor of the month. Lots of bands, even the just relatively famous ones (talking about those who finally started to make money off tours, even if just enough to pay for gas and food), paid their dues to get to where they are now. You might be looking at about 10+ years of being a band, touring, recording, and mostly playing basements and bars, until your catalog and your following are large enough that you can finally afford to get your own tour bus and all, lol (I've seen this happen with Grindcore bands, which I think hardly qualifies as a popular genre among the masses. Certainly less popular than classic rock). That's if you're lucky... So don't do it for the fame/money and do it for yourself, but be patient, cause your perseverance might just be rewarded in a few years.

Hail

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Sharp_as_steel

Well TS, since your a swede, you have probably heard of bands like Hellacopters, Dundertåget and Imperial State Electric? The whole action rock movement is basically just classic rock on speed, so yeah...

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