The gist of the classic rock format around here is that it covers all the hits from the rise of The Beatles in 1963 to the end of the hair era with Use Your Illusion and Pornograffitti limping out around '90 - '91. That's right - it would seem that Americans think of the hair bands as the last hurrah for the rock styles minted and popular in the '60's and '70's, or more properly of course just the '70's. I find myself agreeing with them to an extent, to be honest.

WBAB is the only one of the three to go into that more uncommon cliche of playing a few Pearl Jam, Stone Temple Pilots, Foo Fighters, and Nirvana tracks occasionally.

What's unique about WAXQ is that they like to occasionally pull out a lesser known track of the era to play. Last one I remember from WAXQ is them playing a Traffic cut. And they'll rarely find an excuse to play "Shine On You Crazy Diamond"'s first half some morning. But those are just exceptions to the rule.

But that cliche list hits a lot of things they all do. Both WBAB and WAXQ do Twofer blocks, but only one of them does it on Tuesdays, the other does it on Thursdays. Imagine that! WAXQ does a Zep block with none other than the name "Get The Led Out". And they do various slightly unique interpretations of Beatles breakfasts, like brunches or lunches, alongside a local classic pop station - 103.1, call sign WBZO. And they do that thing where they'll play the occasional Ramones or Clash track to prove how punk they are, plus they'll squeeze in Talking Heads and U2 for good measure. And their extent of girl rock is Joan Jett and Heart - there's even a surprising Janis drought.

The focus of this magazine, like many others, is what the publishers and editors define as the current rock music scene, or the case of Classic Rock, their perception of the past rock music scene.

 

Before comparing cultural differences, perhaps it's better to question how accurate these magazines portray the past rock music world. It's disturbing to me that mega selling artists like Fleetwood Mac or Bruce Springsteen are not prevalent in the past perceived 'world' of Classic Rock magazine.

Yeah, classic rock radio is lame, outdated....a dinosaur, but there was a time when the dinosaur ruled the world.

Somewhat tangentially, I've been wondering how not just classic rock but also classic pop stations whittle down their playlists to exclude certain hits over time. On the classic pop side, for instance, I know from cassette recordings my dad has saved from the '90's that back then the local stations of that format would play "Desperate But Not Serious" in one version or another, but not anymore.

FM Classic Rock stations are meant for the drive to work and the drive home crowd, it gives those people recognizable music for that 1-2 hour in the car, it keeps them from channel surfing while driving.

25-30 yrs ago I had a territory to cover and in the morning I would listen to the FM for traffic issues, between 9am and 3pm I had a case of cassettes I would listen to, then at 3pm I would listen again for traffic issues going home. But you always here the same stuff over and over.

Calling certain stuff Classic Rock is the same argument we have here on what to call a particular band, bottom line is FM will play what people will listen to and that will always be AC/DC to Zeppelin, this is why some teens like AC/DC.

You will never hear anything else but Classic Rock on the FM, never will you hear anything progressive rock deeper than say Tull, Yes, Pink Floyd because the music would be insanely boring!! Can you imagine hearing The Flower Kings, Camel, Magma, early Genesis, PFM, Can.......in the morning or on the drive home!!?? Talk about falling asleep at the wheel 

During the Hand.Cannot.Erase show in Seattle in June, Steven Wilson said himself..." we are just a rock n roll band...."

 

You can actually pick the 3 or 4 songs they'll play from Zeppelin or Floyd in your head. Go ahead, pick the 3 or 4 you can't stand to listen to anymore and there they are! Same with Tull. You get "Aqualung" and that's it, unless they get really adventurous and play "Living in the Past" (now that's dangerous!). It's basically that way for most bands -- one or two of the same overplayed songs (to them Black Sabbath's "Paranoid" or "Iron Man" is the absolute limit of that Satanic stuff ).

 

I haven't listened in years. When I mistakenly land on the station, it's Bob Seger's "Down on Main Street" or the Eagles' "Life in the Fast Lane". I'd rather listen to sports talk radio.

 

They started in 2004 , on the base of the previous rock station called Radio 21, which was born on the late-80's, itself started on the Radio-Cité - created in parts by Marc Moulin during his Telex days in the very early 80's. The mythology is that Radio-cité was Belgium's only (or first anyway) pirate radio, but that's a bit of myrth, methinks (I was in Canada at the time, anyway).

 

 The formula changed slightly (not in the good direction, IMHO) twice: in 2009 and 2012

 

It's the third-most listened-to FM-radio in the French part of the country, and still holds whatever critics and DJ legends of Belgium left alive, including its director Marc Ysaye (drummer of Machiavel) and the recently retired (but he will go on on Radio Campus) rock purist Jacques de Pierpont.   

 

Of course purist like me and the buddies love to loathe it or slam the way the radio is going, but compared to what happens in neighbouring countries (not really aware of what happens in GB ou Germany, though), we're all aware that Poor Little ol' Brussels/Wallonie is doing quite an exploit with this.