this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2026
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I drive an old shit box with a busted CD player so I listen to my small town's golden oldies station. Yeah, it plays a beach boys song every 30 minutes, but it also plays load of Tommy James, original Cher, and also local news. I listen to a wide selection of music, but you are also neglecting fact that the 70's was the best decade for music. Led Zeppelin, Grand Funk Railroad, Cher, Jackson 5, disco, funk, prog rock, and even punk. What gets airtime on classic rock stations are the songs that have stood the rest of time.
boomer tier ossification of culture take
Are you saying that Going to California isn't an amazing song? Or Carry On My Wayward Son? I'm 30 years old and most of my record collection is from the 70's because there was great and interesting music coming from then as opposed to the 80's which is just over synthed music someone wrote in 20 minutes after cleaning their nose in the bathroom, or the 90's when everyone was just trying to rip off Nirvana. I then wrap back around and like loads of dance bangers and indie music from then I was in grade school. Good music is good music man. It's no different than any other art or even athletes. There is a reason everyone knows Babe Ruth but no one remembers his team mate Samuel Byrd.
edit: I'm coming back in for more here. So I have loved Lady Gaga for the past 16 years. I know all her songs. And so now whenever I listen to David Bowie, all I hear is how he influenced her. "Classic rock" as in the wider rock and roll movement from the post war west is the foundation of modern pop music regardless of genre (excluding stuff like classical and jazz). Songs that capture a moment/era/feeling that everyone is experiencing at the time do well and inspire the next generation of artists. The major hits/acts are what everyone gets exposed to, and those who want more will dive deeper. Those who just want background music won't care, and can never be brought to care.
Another way of saying this is that they could play more songs less frequently, but they choose to play less songs more frequently. This increases the common familiarity/overlap that people have, and it makes it easier for dullards to follow along at the same rate, but it makes everything less distinctive, and more competitive.
more context
Each of these well-known bands wrote more than their greatest hits. Any artist will make scores if not hundreds of songs, and they'll be lucky to have as much as 3 make it high on the charts. The other songs are rarely outclassed, they're just not picked. When you say "I've loved Lady Gaga for 16 years", I presume you aren't just talking about her 5 biggest hits.
What we have going on is a familiarity/conformity process shaping what gets played. It translates the subjectivity of what is good music into a positive feedback loop of popularity. Most people end up not listening to all that much besides what is selected for by these stations.
In my experience, if you hear a song frequently enough, you get bored of it and it diminishes how much you like it (the exception is if you're practicing singing/playing it as a musician).
ah sorry, my read was all wrong. This is actually a navel gazing "i was born in the wrong era" take
Alrighty, so then what do you like to listen to so I can tell you all about how you are wrong and have no taste then.
i refuse to engage with this nonsense. You're trying to flatten all of the human experience of music into a single bucket of "good music" based on a laughably narrow standard.
It's naive and juvenile, and I'm not going to encourage your ego by getting pulled into a "which Beatle is the cute one" debate
That's not at all what I am doing. I'm saying that classic rock has plenty of shit music. The Monkees are just a Beatles rip off that had some hits, but contributed little to the wider movement. But the greatest hits are what built the foundation of modern music, and you can hear it's echoes in modern music. There would be no techno or modern EDM without funk and disco icons from the 70's, no metal without Rainbow and Black Sabbath. All music is a reaction to what the creator has heard before. Classic rock stations playing the same 50 songs from the 60's-80's is no different than orchestras playing the same rotation of classical music, no different to why everyone recognizes Beethoven's Vth symphony, but only nerds like me recognize his Pastoral symphony.
There is no "test of time", there is only a self-reinforcing availability bias. Ones that get played more are most familiar, these stations only play what's familiar, and with each passing year any band or even era becomes a smaller fraction of what is available.
Sure, but there are plenty of Billboard top 10's from 1960-1980 that no one has ever heard of. Same with stuff from when I was a kid 20 years ago.