What are the Top 15 Most Played Classic Rock Songs?

What constitutes “Classic Rock”? As it turns out, the answer to that question has been shaped by careful data collection and even a few algorithms. Data-centric blog FiveThirtyEight put the numbers to the test and found that although New York stations seem to play more Led Zeppelin than their counterparts in KISS-loving Charlotte, North Carolina, the twenty-five most played classic rock artists nationwide – such as Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and the Rolling Stones – make up half of the plays on classic rock stations. This explains how the same song seems to surface on classic rock radio again, and again, and again…

The following is a list of the top 15 most played Classic Rock Songs:

So who defines the parameters of this seemingly genre-free category? It’s actually  you – the listener. Very little is played on classic rock stations without extensive market research to find a niche amongst their audience, and that’s how regional popularity will always trump age or genre in defining the musical category of classic rock. Read more here about the carefully crafted classic rock subset and how age alone isn’t the only thing that can make a song truly “classic.”