What do you consider a "classic" song?

[Trollheart]

Okay, you got me. I'm changing the title of the thread! 

[SGR]

[DJChameleon]

Hip Hop is old enough to have classic songs that many people know. It's been around for 50 years.

[SGR]

Hip Hop is old enough to have classic songs that many people know. It's been around for 50 years.

I agree. You made me think again about my proposed 'granddad test', and I realized I was thinking specifically about my own grandfathers (both of whom have passed), who were both too set in their ways and their tastes to even try to appreciate different music genres by the time hip hop became more mainstream - when in reality, there are many men my father's age who are grandfathers (I hope to make him a grandfather soon), and even though he's not particularly into hip hop, he knows many of the tracks and likes some of them (after all, he was a young man in the '90s). He still has vivid memories of back when "Gin and Juice" was getting serious time on MTV.

One of my grandfathers actually really grew to like the metal music my dad grew up with (much to my grandmother's chagrin). But if he showed his own grandfather any music that even featured electric guitar, he'd have probably thought he was showing him devil music. So there's a limit to the usefulness of any kind of 'generation test' once you stretch it out long enough.

[Guybrush]

Some classics that came to mind:

In other words, songs you couldn't bring up in any other thread because everyone knows them already and it makes you seem like a bore who never pierced through the outer layer of the most mainstream offerings of whatever the genre is.

[DJChameleon]

The basic B go to Karaoke song

Every September this song gets played lol

Dominates Halloween every year and you can't escape hearing it.

[Guybrush]

Good picks, Dj.. how I tire of them 😅

[Marie Monday]

The first one I can't see, the second one I don't know ("Eloise" would be my pick for a Damned song people other than their fans know) and Iggy? Sure but again we're talking "Real Wild Child" if you want to get outside the punk arena. This is what I mean: other than the Weapons of Fornication I can't think of a single punk band who, famous as they may be within their fanbase, would be known outside of that, much less considered a classic. Even GSTQ is only really known due to the controversy it kicked off. That's the problem with punk (and hip-hop to an extent): loved and adored by its fans, but unknown to others. Ask any man, woman or gender fluid person walking down the street to name a classic punk song, ten to one they'll have a stab at Johnny and the boys, but will all go for the same song, if they even know it.

you just dont like punk and hiphop, plenty of other people outside the specific scenes do. The classic punk sgr posted is hardly abrasive or inaccessible to everyone. Hell, London Calling is played and sung along at the start of every London football derby I've been too. The same goes for hiphop, a lot of it is as ubiquitous and mainstream as pop nowadays. The way you feel about these songs is the way I feel about some of the songs you consider classics.

[Guybrush]

I like the idea that every genre and subgenre has its classics. If it's a niche genre, most people won't know the songs, but anyone with a real interest in the genre should know them.

[Marie Monday]

that's also true, but punk and hiphop absolutely have genre-transcending classics

some stone cold punk examples:
The Clash - London Calling
The Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen
Ramones - Blitzkrieg Bop
Patti Smith - Gloria
Dead Kennedys - Holiday in Cambodia
Gang of Four - I Found That Essence Rare
Bikini Kill - Rebel Girl
The Stranglers - No More Heroes
Joy Division - Love Will Tear Us Apart
if you adopt a broad definition of punk (justified imo) there's also Blondie, Nirvana, Talking Heads etc.

[SGR]

Classic '80s tunes:

 

[Lisnaholic]

I've enjoyed reading how SCD, collectively, has moved towards defining what makes a song "classic", so I've compiled most of the main criteria you guys have worked out :-

What makes a song a classic? I guess it needs to be instantly recognisable (your Stairways to Heaven, your Bats out of Hell, your Satisfactions), usually needs to have been in the charts or on the radio and often is a genre-crossing song, though not always.

Classics in my eyes should span generations in appeal. They should be songs that your granddad can enjoy, and songs that even your dumb zoomer cousin can admit to enjoying.

I think for a song to be regarded as a classic it must be a) instantly recognisable by all b) timeless, as in, its attraction doesn't dim with the passing of years/decades and c) a song that usually evokes some sort of feeling when heard, and I don't just mean emotion, as most songs do that: I mean a song that evokes memories.

Hip Hop is old enough to have classic songs that many people know. It's been around for 50 years.

I like the idea that every genre and subgenre has its classics. If it's a niche genre, most people won't know the songs, but anyone with a real interest in the genre should know them.

Guybrush makes a really useful distinction I think, between songs recognized within a genre as being a "classic", and songs that, even outside the genre, are regarded as "classic." If there are two types of classic song, then the next obvious move is surely to give them different labels. My first clumsy attempt is to go for "genre classics" and "meta-genre classics", but if anyone has something more catchy, I'm open to persuasion. (© Ms.J.Armatrading)

Here's another criteria that could be used to decide if a song is a meta-genre classic: has it been translated, or sung (original language) around the world? Here are a couple of international classics, imo:-

(Californian group covering a Cuban song)

(With those dance moves, nobody bothered about translating the words, afaik.)

(International hit, Budet Tak, although many people inexplicably prefer the version by some obscure Liverpool band.)   

In other words, songs you couldn't bring up in any other thread because everyone knows them already and it makes you seem like a bore who never pierced through the outer layer of the most mainstream offerings of whatever the genre is.

^ LOL. Yeah, that's a good rule-of-thumb, working definition of a classic !