Electric Guitar Trends

I play in a couple of bands, and one of them is just starting up.  Last night, we auditioned a singer/guitarist, named Don.  He answered our Musolist.com ad for a vocalist, and presented himself as a backup singer/rhythm guitarist.

It turned out that Don is a nice guy who can sing well, and plays guitar very well. 

And Don, like me, has a binder full of songs.  And the songs in his binder overlap with the songs in my binder quite a bit.  There were dozens of songs we could all play, because we have played them dozens of times before, in various bands.  Songs by the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, CCR, The Who, and more.

And who cares about the music we middle aged folks grew up with? A lot of people actually.  My son is 16, and he owns everything Alice Cooper, The Clash, and The Ramones ever recorded. He has several Black Sabbath albums as well. They have dances at my son’s school, but they play mostly rap and hip-hop music and none of his friends like it. Don told me his daugther, who is 26, also knows all the songs he grew up with, because she was exposed to them at home.

Many Classic Rock songs have attracted new young listeners through movie recent soundtracks.  Secret Agent Man, American Woman, and My Generation were on the soundtracks of the Austin Powers series.  I’m a Believer was on a Shrek Soundtrack, as well as Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song.

So, Classic Rock music is well, classic.  It’ll always be with us, and there will always be radios stations playing Classic Rock music.

The ongoing popularity of Classic Rock drives sales of electric guitars, pedals, and other accessories.  People are still knocking themselves out to sound more like Jimi Hendrix and want gear like his. Rickenbacker guitars are associated with 1960’s music. But they can’t keep up with the demand for their guitars with backorders sometimes extending over one year.  Gibson offers guitars with ceramic magnet pickups, which were used throughout the 1960’s.  And sales of vintage guitars, and their current reissues have never been higher.

Want to know what kind of electric guitars will be popular years from now?  Turn on the radio, and tune in a Classic Rock station.