Music Thoughts: Why Classic Rock isn't popular anymore

I want to have a broad scope of topics that I address in this blog, so I figured I would go ahead and start a new section: Music Thoughts. Like I said in my intro, I enjoy classic rock. What does that really mean? Before we can dive into why it has lost popularity, we need to define "classic" rock. When most people think classic rock, they think based off of their own lives; what did I listen to when I was young? My dad, for instance, now thinks of bands like Led Zeppelin and Creedence Clearwater Revival as "classic" rock. So he defines "classic" rock as the beginning of hard rock from the '70s. But how do younger audiences define that? I define it as my father does, but that's obviously because of his influence on my musical tastes. Some people think of "classic" rock as the '90s punk rock era, with bands like Nirvana headlining the charts, or the '80s height of rock n' roll. So what do people of my generation consider as classic? It's impossible to define for me, because my main genre is rock from pretty much the 2000's backwards. So I listen to all of these bands from all of these decades, making it hard to distinguish for me. I can't tell which is "my classic rock" because they're all classic to me. So I figure classic means "what was happening when you couldn't listen to it." A person of my generation couldn't listen to, say, Nirvana because it was a decade or so before our birth, but we may listen to it as "oldies" or "classics."

So why don't people of my generation listen to it anymore? The question baffles me because I don't share musical tastes with my own age. Classic Rock is all about storytelling; every song has something to tell you. It might be from the artists own personal experience, or what they think about the world outside, but if you listen to the lyrics, they have meaning, even if you can't understand what it is. As I am writing this I'm listening to Ripple, by the Grateful Dead, and listening to the lyrics. They hold so much power and authority, like they're trying to spread their message to the world. Today's music... just isn't like that. I know I hold a contrary stance to the rest of my generation, but every day a new song seems to be popular. No one listens to "old" pop or rap because it isn't impactful. All of the songs on SoundCloud with the mumble rappers no one understands will one day be completely forgotten. No one will remember them. However, musical giants like the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers... all of these bands will persist through time and trend. Why? Because their songs have meaning. Rock makes you feel things, something I've learned over the many hours that I have spent listening to them. I never tire of the classics, because they have so much impact. Although I know it is unlikely, I hope one day the world will again remember what rock made them feel, and I think we will all be better off because of it.