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It’s remarkable really. Even in 2024, classic rock is easily the most popular genre of music, but its width and breadth is rarely represented as an artform. There are documentaries about the big stars and big events, sure, but that’s like talking about the icing and not the cake. The size of the genre is rarely addressed in any way. There are documentaries about the Beatles and Bob Dylan, for example, but the likes of Budgie, to take one random example, are entirely ignored and there are hundreds of bands like that. Bands that we all saw and loved who we emotionally engaged with, which, if it were another artform, would be celebrated as special but are usually totally ignored.
I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps the genre is just so big, so the focus is on the big selling headline acts. I waited most of my life to hear ‘our’ music played on daytime radio or for there to be a dedicated radio station. It was basically my generation growing up and getting into positions of power that made the decisions to commission stuff. But even so. It’s not like the 70s and there are some programmes, but not many considering the size of the genre.
The explosion of rock music from 1965-77 was a golden period which basically wrote all the best songs and I think its brilliance and variety is totally taken for granted because it forms part of the DNA of our lives. Other genres are treated with more reverence whereas hard rock is almost laughed at, its acolytes dismissed as somehow uncool and Neanderthal.
It feels disrespectful, like fading out the guitar solo on a record, something that used to routinely happen. This is how mainstream rock acts remain largely anonymous to the public.
Even though they’ve sold millions of records. There are plenty of households that have not heard of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, let alone Gong, The Doobies and Little Feat.
I don’t mind really, I’m used to being marginalised, but it is genuinely odd, not to say disrespectful and it's even worse for heavy metal which exists as a largely ignored subsect, even though its fans are amongst the most loyal and committed.
I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps the genre is just so big, so the focus is on the big selling headline acts. I waited most of my life to hear ‘our’ music played on daytime radio or for there to be a dedicated radio station. It was basically my generation growing up and getting into positions of power that made the decisions to commission stuff. But even so. It’s not like the 70s and there are some programmes, but not many considering the size of the genre.
The explosion of rock music from 1965-77 was a golden period which basically wrote all the best songs and I think its brilliance and variety is totally taken for granted because it forms part of the DNA of our lives. Other genres are treated with more reverence whereas hard rock is almost laughed at, its acolytes dismissed as somehow uncool and Neanderthal.
It feels disrespectful, like fading out the guitar solo on a record, something that used to routinely happen. This is how mainstream rock acts remain largely anonymous to the public.
Even though they’ve sold millions of records. There are plenty of households that have not heard of Black Sabbath and Deep Purple, let alone Gong, The Doobies and Little Feat.
I don’t mind really, I’m used to being marginalised, but it is genuinely odd, not to say disrespectful and it's even worse for heavy metal which exists as a largely ignored subsect, even though its fans are amongst the most loyal and committed.
