What's the point?

[Dave W]

First I've heard of this, although it's been going on for several years: Classic Rock Awards

What's the point of giving out awards today for music from years ago? Self congratulation? Promotional purposes only?

[ack1961]

Music is timeless.
There isn't a window in which we're allowed to listen, then why should there be a window in which we're allowed to reward?

[Barklessdog]

What's the point of giving out awards today for music from years ago? Self congratulation? Promotional purposes only?

I think it gives somer artist the recognition they never had (not on that list), but also to expose the artists to a new geberation of kids. Not a lot of kids today know of Jeff Beck.

[uwe]

Dave, how shall I put this  , Classic Rock is an English magazine (has been for a decade or so)

http://www.classicrockmagazine.com/

that caters to that irrelevant minority of us who (also) like what you have in the past opted to refer to as "stadium rock". They are the kind of magazine that do serious articles on, say, REO Speedwagon or ELP tours in the seventies, and there are aging baby boomers like me who enjoy the mag and have had a subscription for years. (Edith calls it "your porn mag".) I'm, of course, also the only person on earth that still buys CDs and holds mp3s for an assault on taste and ears.

In other words: It's nothing, just move on, Dave, there is nothing to look at. These are people who even have a spin-off Prog magazine running (which is very successful, thank you, let's see if today's mp3 listeners will be buying magazines on their bands in forty years from now?) and that utmost doubleplusungood form of stadium rock called, yes, AOR. They do whole magazines on Journey, Styx and Foreigner alone, it's disgusting.  

In recent years they have broadened their focus somewhat and only comparatively recently received some flak for an interview with Paul Weller (ex-Jam and Style Council, Dave) which some of their old guard readers did not deem to be credibly rock (or "rawk!") enough, CR reacted undeterred in their idiosyncratic Brit humor. They are a bit of an elephants' graveyard for rock journos that did work before for Sounds, Kerrang and Metal Hammer, but there is also rock journo nobility like Charles Shaar Murray who used to write for Melody Maker and NME. In US terms, I'd say they are a bit like Creem magazine used to be.

I'm always happy when mine arrives.

Uwe

PS: I know one of their authors personally which is how I got to know Messrs John Wetton (Family, King Crimson, Roxy Music, Bryan Ferry, Uriah Heep, Wishbone Ash, UK, Asia), Geoff Downes (Buggles, Yes, Asia), Steve Howe (Yes, GTR, Asia) and Carl Palmer (Arthur Brown, ELP, Quango, Asia) backstage after a gig in Aschaffenburg only comparatively recently (all of them courteous English gentlemen and Herr Wetton chatted even a little about his Gibson Victory with me, Carl Palmer was more interested about my law firm career as his daughter has just joined one - "I now have a medical doctor, a pilot and a lawyer in the family" he beamed - and Herr Howe, alas, doesn't shake hands and only waves hi and good-bye shyly for microbic reasons). Classic Rock, Dave, is a bit for people who care about all that history and trivia hidden in those parentheses. Self-congratulatory, no doubt, but hold a vinyl copy of Tales of Topographic Oceans in your hands and marvel at the Roger Dean cover and then try holding an mp3 and look at, well, look at nothing and you will then still not know what I mean. But then you don't have to either.

[ack1961]

Can I re-do my initial post?  I didn't know we were supposed to name-drop.

[uwe]

Dave revels so much in his lovingly cultivated ignorance of mainstream rock that mere name-dropping isn't enough, you have to scatter-bomb the guy!   Besides, had I just said Wetton, Downes, Palmer & Howe, he would have asked whether I was talking about another law firm.   But you're right, t'was the heat of the moment ...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-up8ebz06yA&feature=related

[Dave W]

That's Dewey, Cheatem & Howe. Not to be confused with the firm of Metter, Fuchter & Lefter.

Yes, I understand appreciation of classic rock. I mostly listen to older music. And I did see that the awards were connected to the magazine. It just strikes me as very odd to have award ceremonies for old work or reissues. Might as well award Beethoven the Classic Composer of the Year Award for 2011 for the Eroica, finished in 1804.

It's nice to read about older music or artists, or see them discussed on a forum. IMHO it's a different matter to have an awards ceremony. Smacks of a promotional gimmick, not appreciation of the music. Not that Gene Simmons would ever be connected with anything self-promoting.

[uwe]

In part it has to do that none of these bands ever saw awards back in the day. You know how rock critics favor The Band and Elvis Costello over Foghat and Grand Funk Railroad. (For the avoidance of doubt: I like all four!) And since classic/baby boomer rock has shown some umprecedented commercial longevity, bands like Journey etc are no longer perceived as laughing stock. I think they see that as belated recognition, but doesn't it feel good to be appreciated eventually?

Classic Rock's secret recipe is that they saw and occupied a niche between esoteric fanzines for trainspotters and current music journalism which thinks that hard rock started with Metallica and that Nickelbag are their worthy successors. They are a bit like a glossy vintage car magazine. The awards thing started relatively late with them, it had gone out of fashion for a while. I remember in the seventies reader polls about keyboarders (regularly: Wakeman, Emerson, Lord), bassists (regularly: Squire, Lake, Rutherford), guitarists (regularly: Gilmour, Blackmore, Page), drummers (regularly: Bonham, Collins, Palmer),   vocalists (regularly: Gillan, Plant, Jon Anderson) and even "other instruments" (always no 1: Ian Anderson!) in teen magazines, that would be unthinkable today.

[Dave W]

... I think they see that as belated recognition, but doesn't it feel good to be appreciated eventually?

Appreciation is good. OTOH I wouldn't want to be "appreciated" through something like this.

[Highlander]

Is this the five minute argument or the full half hour...?

[uwe]

The vanity of man ... Look at Kiss, hundreds of millions of record sales and mega tour based on - they would agree - limited talent, yet it still grates them that they have not been invited to the RRHF. Simmons and Stanley can  downplay it all the ywant, sour grapes etc, but in their heart of hearts they clamor for it.

[ack1961]

The vanity of man ... Look at Kiss, hundreds of millions of record sales and mega tour based on - they would agree - limited talent, yet it still grates them that they have not been invited to the RRHF. Simmons and Stanley can  downplay it all the ywant, sour grapes etc, but in their heart of hearts they clamor for it.

Oh, they've been invited, just not on-stage.

[Pilgrim]

Dick Dale for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame!!!!   

[Barklessdog]

Dude you love that song!

[Dave W]

I don't see the RRHOF or any music hall of fame in the same light as annual award shows.