Would You Believe ‘Contemporary Classic Rock?’

Those of us who are old enough to remember the television series Get Smart will recognize where I stole part of that headline from. I can remember watching that program regularly as a kid.

Regular readers know that I keep the focus on classic rock here, but do stray a bit from time to time when something interesting shows up on my radar that isn’t quite classic rock in its purest form, but may be of interest to fans of the classic rock genre. From now on, I am going to refer to these artists as “contemporary classic rock” artists.

Please note that I’m not staking a claim as the one who coined that term, and for all I know, it has been used a million times by others. It just happens to be what popped into my head when I searched for a way to classify artists like this. Hopefully, it is not something the artists themselves will find disagreeable.

I believe it started when I ran across an article about Grace Potter and The Nocturnals a couple of years ago. I liked the fact that they had a “classic” sound – something that could have come out of the 70’s, but clearly they are a contemporary group.

I decided that they were too good to ignore and thought that other classic rock fans might appreciate their work as much as I do. Therefore I decided to sneak them in here alongside the great bands of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.

These exceptions will be rare, and totally according to whether I like a particular act or not. There are probably a lot of contemporary groups out there that are going for a “classic” sound, but only a few of them really catch my attention in a way that makes me want to help to spread the word about them in some small way.

It makes me wonder if some classic rock radio stations might be interested in mixing things up a little with some of these new groups that have a solid, classic sound. If there’s one criticism I hear about classic rock radio, it’s that they play the same songs over and over again. I realize radio stations are businesses that base their decisions on the bottom line, but it would be interesting to see what the audience reaction would be to showcasing a few select contemporary groups that have the “right” sound.

Speaking of Grace Potter and The Nocturnals, they’ve recently released a new video which showcases the group as they cover the Jefferson Airplane classic “White Rabbit.” As a fan, I may be biased, but I think they pulled it off brilliantly.

I’m told that more Grace Potter and The Nocturnals news will be coming soon.