A recent story in USA Today reports that classic rock tunes are being downloaded at a pretty good pace these days. The story points to this as evidence that us older music fans still listening to the music we grew up.

That is certainly true in my case. Most of the stuff I listen to is from a few decades back, although some of my favorites like Rush are still cranking out new music and going on tour.

An outfit called Soundscan tracks digital music downloads and reports that classic rock tunes make up  a respectable share of the ones and zeros zooming across the net to provide music fans with a fix in the form of their favorite tunes.

Among the top classic downloads are Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama” and Survivor’s “Eye of The Tiger.” Trust me, none of the ones and zeros that make up that last one were destined for my computer!

And it’s not just us graying baby boomers that are loading up their hard drives with digital music. My dad, who is in his seventies, has as much digital music on his PC as I do on mine. Maybe even more. Granted, I don’t think he has any Rush or Led Zeppelin, but he enjoys his tunes as much as the rest of us and knows how to download them.

What’s really nice about this is that classic rock is picking up a lot of new fans from these downloads. The music is so accessible these days and a lot of kids are downloading some of the older music and finding out that they really like it.

Who can blame them? Unless you are a pop or hip hop fan, what is there to listen to these days? Contemporary rock bands that are any good seem very hard to find lately, so I can see why some kids are looking to the past for good music. That’s where the best stuff is.

To see the whole story, check out USA Today.