Classic example: Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” responding to Neil Young’s “Southern Man”. What are some others?

So, there tends to be two schools of thought when it comes to the term classic rock.  Those who (wrongfully) think classic rock is interchangeable with “old music” (basically the musical equivalent of “antique”) and those who (rightfully) know it means a period of music and the performers of that era.

A few years back I did playlists covering the full history of classic rock (specifically to try and remove as many of the overplayed songs as possible and included a ton of forgotten favorites).  It took weeks of research and I made the playlists in chronological order.  I noticed that the 70s started strong, I was easily able to find 100+ songs for the first 5 years, but it became more challenging to dig up good songs each year after 1975.  Too many of the older groups had either broken up, were running out of steam, or were dabbling in disco and their output was…not great.

By the time I reached 78 and 79, I was hard pressed to come up with more than 60 songs and even those tended to be 2 songs each for the 30 groups that were still making solid albums.  While I hated to do it, I had to dip into some newer groups just to flesh out the playlists to keep them from being too repetitive.

It’s taken me a year, but I’ve finally compiled a playlist of the other side of the 70s – the emerging underground (originally called New Wave, eventually becoming New Wave, Punk, Post Punk, electronic music, etc.).  This playlist is completely opposite to the 70s classic rock list; where the classic rock starts strong and ends weak, this one starts out very sparse (only about 60 songs for the first 6 years) and shows the trend of newer bands opting for a completely different style of music (over 150 different new artists represented in 1979).

While there were some cross over groups (Blonde, the Police, Talking Heads), even though the bands formed during the classic rock period, you’ll hear a stark contrast in the style of the songs between the two lists.  Many of these bands inspired the sounds of the 80s and the 90s (and many continue to influence artists to this day).

If you’re interested in seeing, year by year, how music changed in the 70s, check out the playlists.