“I Tried to Have a Father but Instead I Had a Dad”: Defining Dad Rock

ABSTRACT

Throughout recent rock discourse, the term dad rock has been used selectively to describe rock music and its ethos. By seeking an expanded definition of dad rock, this article explores contexts which have shaped its current use. Informed by literature pertaining to rock music culture, masculinity, and the rock canon, this exploration will determine the identities, eras, and sounds which are susceptible to the dad rock label. This will be further supplemented through accounts from online discourse and a quantitative analysis of tracklist data collected from nine dad rock playlists and compilation albums.

KEYWORDS:

• Dad rock
• age
• masculinity
• the rock canon
• rock culture

“You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet”: Formally Introducing Dad Rock

The discussion surrounding the stratified styles of rock music is one which has saturated general discourse, media, and academia pertaining to the genre. A recent offshoot of this discussion which has been circling recent online media revolves around the style of dad rock (see Mitchum, “I Introduced”; Zoladz; Schaffner). What constitutes as dad rock has been debated and mostly undecided. However, it can be broadly understood as rock music which the fathers of today’s young people would listen to, or rock which has been influenced by the stylistic customs of the baby boomer generation. These definitions implicitly reference rock’s foundations in masculinity and conventions of the 1960s (Frith and McRobbie 319; Whiteley 119; von Appen and Doehring 26). Dad rock has yet to be interrogated through a scholarly lens.

This article takes the shape of an exploratory essay which seeks to provide a definition of the genre, an investigation of why it has come to be, and a description of what is perceived as fitting of the label. I seek to find which identities, time periods, and styles are likely to be classed as dad rock. I will begin by discussing informal and journalistic literature regarding dad rock to provide a contextual background for my formalized approach to the genre. While this discussion focuses more on the emergence of dad rock discourse and how rock artists locate themselves within the categorization, it is motivated by perceptions of masculinity and age. Thus, to account for the implications of these two factors, specific established approaches to masculinity, canonization, and heritage are reviewed in the following sections. These sections preface an analysis of data taken from nine playlists and compilation albums created by major streaming platforms and music labels. The data centers on categories of artists, songs, genders, decades of release, and locations of release in order to determine what dad rock is as understood through the eyes of cultural intermediaries like streaming platforms. These approaches come together to illustrate an initial formal account of dad rock.

“Take it Easy”: A Brief Background on Dad Rock

While its beginnings are indeterminate, dad rock officially crystallized in the media in 2007, when Wilco released their sixth studio album Sky Blue Sky. Pitchfork’s Rob Mitchum reviewed Wilco’s sixth album as an exposure of the band’s dad rock gene, “the stylistic equivalent of a wardrobe change into sweatpants and a tank top” (“Review” par. 1). In Mitchum’s account, dad rock is a pejorative term, one which he understands to be loaded with passivity and domestication, adequately describing Wilco’s “desperate pursuit of comfort” (“Review” par. 4). Here, dad rock is music produced with complacency, made by once popular rock bands who no longer push boundaries, and take shelter in basic heritage influences (Mitchum, “I Introduced” par. 1). This review has been credited for the popularization of the term dad rock as it was the first time dad rock was mentioned in print (Zoladz par. 9). The term stuck to Wilco and their “more canonical and constitutionally laid-back classic rock influences” (Zoladz par. 10). Mitchum later confirmed his review was “patient zero for the dad- prefix outbreak”; acting as a catalyst to a discursive transformation where dad went from snide aside to generational style signifier (“I Introduced” par. 2). Through this perspective, the dad label is conjured by appeals to heritage rock, domestic lifestyle, and pursuits of comfort.

Wilco’s frontman, Jeff Tweedy, responded to his band’s association with the term by stating that “when people say dad rock, they actually just mean rock,” further suggesting that fans use the label when they perceive a derivative of the rock ethos (qtd. in Hiatt par. 2). Tweedy has gone on to form a band with his sons, and a recent headline has crowned them as the kings of dad rock. Tweedy’s son told Spin Magazine that his father aims to produce dad rock on his own terms, and it does not become more dad rock than a father producing rock music with his sons (Cohen par. 16). Another artist who has welcomed the label is Dave Grohl of the Foo Fighters, who affirmed the band’s status as a dad rock act, stating that the band has never been cool, and that they are dads who make up a rock band (Jones par. 3). Additionally, Matt Berninger of the National has also embraced the label, as it is a manifestation of the reality of who he is (Groundwater par. 7). A criterion can be formed from the above sentiments. Dad rock is most easily achieved by rock musicians who are also fathers. However, it also is seen to combine elements of passivity, comfort, and uncoolness. It is music which achieves these standards upon release, or music which has lingered long enough in the public sphere to become perceived as such. Thus, the scope of dad rock is broad, and is more in line with Tweedy’s thoughts that dad rock is merely rock, or representative of rock’s ethos.

While the label may be used as a pejorative in some cases, there are instances of those who embrace it, much like the artists named above. The realm of online media echoes this binary, and further, through the vast range of artists conflated with dad rock, it is demonstrated that Tweedy’s all rock observation may be at play. From Reddit discussions, YouTube vlogs, TikToks, streaming service playlists, and a NOW! That’s What I Call Dad Rock compilation album, these platforms exhibit the variety of artists and songs which have been rolled into dad rock discourse. Texts like the NOW! album and playlists from major streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify, all showcase an idiosyncratic array of artists under the label of dad rock. These compilations feature the likes of Meat Loaf, Blink-182, and MGMT, to more canonical, classic rock acts such as the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and Led Zeppelin, covering rock subgenres from 2010’s indie rock to ’80s hard, and paradoxically, soft rock. Mitchum’s critique is directed toward an artist’s production of distinct, comfortable styles. However, the demonstrated variety in online media suggests that the perception of dad rock spans over a vast portion of the rock genre.

The broad subjectivity of the dad modifier is mostly absent from formal musicological or sociological discussion. Although Thorne uses the term in “Immanuel Kant’s Manifesto for Dad Rock,” dad rock is used as a passing critique in a broader analysis of Nicholas Brown’s Autonomy. Thorne does not elaborate on the meaning of dad rock, a notion which in itself exemplifies the broader use of the label.

The dad modifier references both a masculine archetype and a progression in age. To begin the process of bringing dad rock’s perceived meaning into formalized, academic context, I have evaluated concepts from dad rock discourse which overlap with broader themes of popular and rock music studies. The sections to follow review literature pertaining to rock’s masculinization, the rock canon, and its status as a genre birthed out of baby boomer culture. These themes, or ideologies, assist in understanding how rock and its ethos have elicited meanings of masculinity and aging in order to become perceived as something which can be categorized as “dad.”

“The Boys Are Back in Town”: The Masculinization of Rock

Rock, as Frith and McRobbie state, is a male form as it is created primarily by men and its products are constituted by masculine images, values, and sentiments (319). When discussing rock culture, we refer to more than just its musicality, we also refer to the generalized identity-based perceptions of its audience, its commercial production, and its ideology of creative integrity (318). With these paramusical notions intertwined with how we refer to rock, masculinity is perceived as innate to the genre. Despite participation by non-men, rock has been positioned as a system which privileges and favors masculinity (Leonard 28). This is a pattern evident in research, as Vroomen states, despite investing strongly in popular music, aging, middle-class women are “seldom considered legitimate objects of study” (238). These gendered preferences, Bayton warns, creates material and ideological constraints which cause struggle for women, or their general absence from the genre (40). These are patterns which have followed rock over its history and into its contemporary varieties, it is clear that “the ongoing tradition of rock is still deeply masculine” (Gottlieb and Wald 254–75). I acknowledge that masculinity manifests in varied, diverse forms across multiple styles of popular music and different facets of the music industry, outside of the white, heteronormative iterations that are discussed homogeneously in this discussion. Here, masculinity is treated on more generalizing, hegemonic grounds in order to account for its domination within rock music culture. It is this domination which has led to a unanimous perception of rock as a male form, resulting in stylistic modifiers like dad rock.

While a small amount of online and print media which currently exists in relation to mom rock, mostly pertaining to a young American band who have claimed the title as their band name, it is largely overshadowed by dad rock media. While the purpose of this article is to bring dad rock into an academic space, mom rock has already surfaced in scholarly discussion through the writing of Norma Coates. Coates describes mom rock as a blip in mid-2000s’ media which centered on white, upper-middle class, heteronormative women who play or listen to rock music, a genre “unified by the reproductive status of band members” (87). Further, much like how dad rock is discussed here, mom rock exists not as a set sound, but through “the composition of its bands” (87). Coates’s discussion diverges from what is at hand in my exploration through the emphasis on mom rock’s entrenchment in domestic lifestyles as the genre relates ideologies of motherhood to rock and popular music (98). Here, mom rock is illustrated as a form of music which is created by moms despite their motherhood. However, in this exploration, dad rock is discussed as a form of preexisting guitar-based popular music which is labeled as dad based on its performers fitting the criteria of masculinity and age to fall appropriately within the dad stereotype. Treated with novelty, mom rock experienced a lack of success in popular media and music industries (99). This lack of seriousness toward female performers, and perhaps the very notion that mom rock is forgotten while dad rock remains in the popular eye, emulates what can be observed over rock culture’s history.

In the field of rock music studies, some have raised questions regarding the nature in which rock culture’s male paradigm subordinates feminine identity (Gracyk 163). Amidst this line of questioning, Gracyk offers that the act of being a rock fan can entail a celebration of “the most unpalatable abuse that men dish out for women” (175). The othering of feminine identity in rock goes as far as supporting malicious attitudes and behaviors toward women. While this article does not observe this violence directly, there is valuable writing which documents men’s violence toward women within and as a product of rock culture (see also Bretthauer et al.; Hill, et al.; St. Lawrence and Joyner). However, this research exemplifies the serious ramifications amongst rock’s historical distance from and opposition to femininity.

Rock culture is overtly and intentionally grounded in masculine experience through the subordination of women. There is significance to the celebration of rock’s two highly male-dominated periods of its North American based 1950s’ roots and the British invasion (Keightley 117). Throughout these historic periods and to present day, rock has been conflated with masculine meanings and imagery predominantly through cultural intermediaries. In particular, rock formatted media entities like magazines, television programs, and radio have been constructed for a male audience. Radio, in particular, executes appeals to masculinity through product advertising and male-orientated talk shows (Wollman 2; Crider 260). Throughout the history of rock’s industries and ideologies, a distance and opposition to femininity has contributed to a culture which erases women to create a genre perceived as innately male (Cohen 203–07). For example, the term “women in rock” is one which lumps non-male performers into one category despite diverse backgrounds (Cohen 204). It is a problematic phrase, which peculiarizes non-male rock artists, and through it, “rock discourse thus normalizes the male performer” (Cohen 32; Kearney 211). It is both difficult for women to be normalized in rock culture, and natural for rock to be carried out by men. Rock is understood alongside masculine meanings and histories.

The exclusion of women from music history is reflected in the absence of women in the rock music canon (Strong, “Grunge” 402). Through this, the masculinization of rock history involves a process of canonization by which a selection of performers and works are presented as culturally worthy, or classic, by musicians and critics who make aesthetic judgments informed by value and taste (Leonard 27). Leonard explains that the media relies on the rock canon to reference established artists and utilize them as points of comparison for new records or musical movements (27). The canon makes rock history more intelligible to musicians, critics, and audiences, but also characterizes it through its representation of common identities (28). Through the prevalence of masculinity in rock culture, the canon serves as another extension of male hegemony. To become canonized, albums and artists must move through evaluations pertaining to authenticity, agency, and autonomy, all notions which are grounded in masculine stereotypes. Therefore, music aligned with feminine stereotypes is generally filtered out during this process (Schmutz and Faupel 690). Thus, if the rock canon privileges male performers, it becomes a list that showcases artists as the best alongside their masculinity.

With the industry, performers, audiences, and culture around rock dominated by male identities and masculine ideologies, it is clear as to why stylistic modifiers like dad are being applied to rock music. However, while canonization contextualizes how cultural value is ascribed to masculinity in rock, it also demonstrates that particular musicians or works are kept in the popular sphere as representations of good rock music. Good, in this context, is synonymous with culturally valuable. Here, value is created through critical recognition granted to an artist or work which meets the requirements of the rock canon. These requirements and the process of canonization are outlined in the following section. Additionally, I discuss how those who have been elevated as the representatives of rock remain as so for extended periods of time, thus contextualizing the aging implication of the dad modifier.

“Reelin’ in the Years”: The Rock Canon

Across all forms of art, the concept of the canon applies to artists and works which are considered to be the best in their fields. While earlier iterations of music canons were applied to genres like classical and jazz, the rock canon became recognized in the 1990s. In this period, the rock canon formed out of music publications which appraised the greatest albums of all time, creating a list, or a consensus, of artists and albums that are widely accepted as the best in rock (Jones 25). Canonization fits naturally within how perceived value is granted to rock music. It represents what artists, audiences, and predominantly critics, consider to be exemplary in rock, granting legitimacy to those who best imbue their works with originality and enduring appeal. Canonized material has been recognized to follow rock conventions of four-four timing, standard song lengths of less than four minutes, songs written by the performers themselves and sung in English, and use of the standard rock instrumentation of drums, bass, keys, guitars, and vocals (von Appen and Doehring 24). However, it is not solely the music which is recognized in these decisions, as consecration and popular music canons result from “a complex interplay between music content and the broader sociohistorical context in which that content is received and evaluated” (Schmutz 70). Therefore, the rock canon provides both fans within and audiences outside of the genre with a repertoire of artists and music which constitutes the ethos of rock and its status as a serious art form. Through providing this retrospective list of what is the best in the field, critics, artists, and audiences are thus able to cast judgment of value and quality on the rock music they consume.

The rock canon is generally measured by polls and media which assess the artists and albums which have been named as the greatest of all time. In 2006, data from von Appen and Doehring mapped out what the rock canon looks like, formulating both a list and a set of demographic information which has been reflected in further analyses of canonization from other scholars since (von Appen and Doehring 21; Schmutz 69; Dhaenens 11; Jones 120). This analysis found that the majority of works, or forty percent, named in this list came from 1965–1969 or as what they describe as the golden age of rock music, thirty percent were from the 1970s, twenty percent from the 1990s, and finally, 3.7% of albums were from the 1980s (von Appen and Doehring 22). In terms of artists, nearly all originated from the US or UK. The Beatles were dominant, as well as other “heroes of rock” such as Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, followed by Nirvana, Radiohead, Pink Floyd, U2, the Beach Boys and the Velvet Underground. The artistic metric that drives canonization is an effect which does not change quickly, von Appen and Doehring suggest that “there is a kind of feedback at work here” (33). Through these albums and artists acting as the prototypes for the “perfect embodiments of all the ideals” of rock (33), these masterworks are held in high and increasing esteem, thus newer releases and artists cannot compare to what is already considered to be the best of all time.

Similarly, Strong states that once bands reach the canon, it is difficult to move them, particularly as they become emulated as points of inspiration by other rock bands, making it near impossible for newer acts to become canonized as they are regarded as “derivative and ‘not as good as the original’” (“Triple” 125). Due to artists emulating canonized material, there is a pool of works across history which reflect the conventions of the rock canon which are not recognized as the best of all time. While this process requires further empirical investigation, it implies an entrenchment of canonical conventions within the creation of rock music. In further demonstrating this entrenchment, the feedback loop is upheld by listeners through an internalization of the rock canon, it is broadly remembered and considered important by audiences (Strong, “Triple” 125; Dhaenens 11). While this process may illuminate why masculinity is kept circulating in rock culture to a dominant degree, it also explains why rock is being perceived as reaching the dad age and beyond. The prevalence of men in the canon explains why both implications of masculinity and age occur within the label of dad rock. To speak directly to the rock canon, if the majority of its works were produced by rock artists in the late 1960s and 1970s, and these artists have remained representative of the best in rock to this present day, the perception of rock and its artists as aged to the point of fatherhood and beyond is to be expected.

“Glory Days”: Rock as Boomer Culture

In the rock canon, and more broadly, rock culture, there is a value hierarchy between old and new music. Generally, it is older music which has been conflated with high art meanings while the newer tends to be perceived as lower. This is implied by Regev’s description of high and low art in popular music, where high and low are compared to value and valueless (97–98). This sentiment points toward a phenomenon within the construction and promotion of canon; one in which older is regarded as high, valuable art, while newer is lower and valueless. Further, it has been shown that there is a “preferential treatment of late 1960s albums” in media which ranks the greatest albums of artists of all time (von Appen and Doehring 26). As a considerable number of the rock fans who engage with the canon would not have been old enough to experience the music of the 1960s and 1970s firsthand, an anchoring effect has occurred by which the preceding generation were first to define rock’s requirements and standards (26). Thus, as rock is evaluated both in terms of musical and social criteria, the collective memory of classic ‘60s rock standards has a stake in the perceived value of rock.

The mid-1960s was a period in which rock grew out of rock and roll and formed its own sensibilities through “performative, cultural and aesthetic discourses,” paving way for the criterion of seriousness, autonomy, and authenticity to become central to the way in which perceived value is granted to rock music (Bennett, “‘Heritage’” 475). This was brought into fruition through critical attention to rock, when, by the late 1960s, rock criticism started receiving mass attention resulting in the genre’s accreditation as a serious art form (Gendron 208). Additionally, during this time, rock artists stepped away from the commercial, chart orientated music and moved toward pursuing creative processes of album-orientated music. This signified the artist’s move from the pop context and into a status of cultural significance. As Bennett understands, this process is what initiated rock’s significant contribution to the development of popular culture in the 20th century, going on to locate rock within the realm of heritage which refers to the customs, traditions, and places affiliated with cultural memories which shape collective identity (“‘Heritage’” 476–77). The judgments of value in contemporary rock, which are ruled by canonical perceptions, are informed by standards which took shape 60 years ago.

Rock is deeply connected to customs from the 1960s which belong to the collective, cultural memory of the aging baby boomer generation. While rock music persists in popular culture on a global scale, classic or canonized rock-based music is understood as essential and significant to the baby boomer identity and its modes of cultural production (Gencarelli 175; O’Shea 200). While rock has been discussed extensively alongside concepts of youth culture, due to its long association with baby boomers, it is now more a key feature of adult culture (Kotarba 8). However, as a genre once grounded in the lived experiences of middle-class youth, classic, heritage, canonized rock is accessed by a multi-generational audience (Bennet, “‘Things’” 261). Those from younger age groups are able to enjoy rock music from the boomer generation from a critical distance, thus receiving a “more informed picture of the genre’s achievements and shortcomings” (“‘Things’” 267). Bennet describes how there has been an increase in parents handing down their musical tastes to their children (“‘Things’” 262). Further, young people are encountering classic rock through media which imbues the music with a sense of received nostalgia, whereby those who have not lived through the ’60s and ’70s perceive music from that time as better and more serious than what is made today (“‘Things’” 273). Therefore, due to this degree of separation, younger rock fans are experiencing the music and performers “through a specifically altered lens” (“‘Things’” 262). Katz echoes this, highlighting how classic rock consumer culture and its material reproduction of music from the baby boomer age, has increased the accessibility to various generations (579). Much like the ideological feedback loop keeping canonized artists in circulation, these consumer industries and music networks uphold classic rock and its performers as baby boomers progress into later stages of life, meaning that those who represent classic, heritage, or canonized rock music are aging and retiring but remain in the public eye (579). Katz goes on to recount his students’ attitudes toward rock and how the music was utilized in their family units to forge communication and shared memory (582). Through the experiences of these students, it is the father that was most commonly credited as the one who shares tastes and knowledge on rock music with his children (583). In this North American context, young people are learning about classic rock music through their dad due to its status as a product of the baby boomer experience.

There are multiple processes described above which contribute to rock music and its perceived separation from what is youthful and current, and I will now highlight two of significance before moving into methodological discussion. Firstly, through the perspective of Regev mentioned above, it is that newer, youthful music is perceived alongside low art, which does not meet rock’s criteria of cultural value. Older rock music is moving in high art circles; it is shifting closer to meanings of value seen in genres like jazz and classical which sit above the value of pop or other low brow music. Secondly, due to its deep association with the culture of the baby boomer generation, ideological feedback loops through canonization and processes within the consumer industries, aging rock musicians are maintained as popular representatives of the genre, and aging men remain as its dominant audience. Further, those in younger generations witness this status and learn about the genre through parents or through media which imbues rock with a sense of nostalgia and heritage. Therefore, we perceive rock’s aging, masculine nature and begin creating labels which encapsulate its state, like dad rock.

“Who Can it Be Now”? The Method to Finding Dad Rock

With the theoretical groundwork laid, I will now evaluate who and what constitutes dad rock amongst varying and conflicting ideas which exist across online discourse. To do so, I turn to playlists and compilation albums created by commercial industry organizations. Data was collected from the tracklisting of a total of seven playlists and two compilation albums, both either created by major streaming platforms or labels. These sources are as follows:

Dad Rock by Spotify

Dad Rock Essentials by Apple Music

Dad Rock by Universal Music Group for Apple Music

Dad Rock by Amazon Music

Dad Rock by Warner Music for Amazon Music

Dad Rock by iHeartRadio

Now! That’s What I Call Dad Rock by Sony and Universal Music

Greatest Ever! Dad Rock by Union Square Music and BMG.

The tracklists from these sources were merged to form a master list of 465 songs and 275 artists, and analyzed to determine which artists, songs, decades, genders, and continents were most frequently featured alongside the label of dad rock. These five categories formed from the ideologies represented in the previous section of reviewed literature. Those artists who achieved the commercial and critical success required to reach canonized or classic status have, generally, originated from the US or UK. Therefore, location is a consideration. Further, as rock music from the 1960s and 1970s has been preferentially treated in media pertaining to the canonization of rock: decade is the next category. The masculinization of the broader culture of rock and the canon itself has been interrogated extensively; therefore, gender is another consideration. The final two categories seek to find the artists and songs which have been mentioned most frequently within the playlists in order to form an account of what stands as a canon of dad rock. Before further breaking down this data, I elaborate on the reasoning which led to this method as supported by theorizations from popular music studies.

Here, playlists from major streaming platforms and compilation albums are treated as texts which represent authoritative perceptions of the dad rock genre. These sources are positioned as key intermediaries which influence the perception of the genre.

A passing argument in Frith’s Sociology of Rock points to how rock ideologies partially depend on definitions of rock’s meanings provided by intermediaries (207). Intermediaries, in this sense, operate between artists and audiences to evaluate who and what is worthy of esteem, thereby playing a role in the legitimation or consecration of an artist within a particular style (Dowd et al. 118). Previously, entities like retailers, radio stations, and festival programmers have been understood as intermediaries who curate culture and monitor audience taste. However, as Morris argues, recommendation services such as Netflix or Spotify have now come to also carry out these roles (448). Digital streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music have come to occupy a culturally authoritative position in music, contributing to the shaping of popular taste (Morgan 35).

A unique feature of these services is the curated playlist, offering listeners the opportunity to navigate the extensive digital library on offer through browsing through particular styles, periods, artists, and moods (Dhaenens and Burgess 1195; Morgan 36). Morgan highlights that within these libraries, playlists created by the platforms themselves have been perceived by research participants as “the key to the largest potential audience” (36). Similarly, Eriksson observes the importance of playlists curated by the platforms themselves, or by other known commercial third-party entities, claiming that Spotify’s editorial playlists account for “roughly thirty percent of its total streams” (416). In their analysis of LGBTQ-themed Spotify playlists, Dhaenens and Burgess argue that streaming services constitute and enact various aesthetics, ideologies, and popular music culture histories, and the widespread cultural influence of these platforms leads to reshaping or invention “musical canons for particular styles or genres” (1195). Considering the new status of streaming services as cultural intermediaries, the playlist acts as a key feature within this role, guiding listeners to form perceptions on who and what represents a particular period, mood, or genre. Therefore, when looking to canons of styles or genres like dad rock, playlists, particularly those made by the platforms themselves, can be observed to further understand aesthetic and social conventions around the music.

To briefly justify the use of compilation albums, I provide three reasons for their inclusion in this set of data. First, the albums have been mentioned throughout informal publications as a legitimate manifestation of the genre. Secondly, I wanted to consider those listeners who may prefer physical modes of music listening as opposed to streaming platforms. Finally, the compilation album functions similarly to the playlist and rose to commercial success prior to the popularity of the streaming service. Through this, consumers were offered the opportunity to listen by genre, time period, mood, or hit songs (Burnett and Wikström 580), categories already mentioned above in relation to the playlist.

As stated, the nine sources listed at the beginning of this section were created by the platforms themselves or by a commercial third party, rather than fan created.

“Come Together”: Findings

First, in the artists category, ten bands featured frequently across the nine sources. Few solo artists appeared; album-oriented bands were favored as representatives of dad rock. In eight of the nine sources with fourteen tracks included, Tom Petty or Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers were the most frequently named. Bruce Springsteen was second with ten mentions and Steely Dan were in third with eight mentions. Wilco, Paul McCartney and Wings, and the Eagles each received seven mentions; Thin Lizzy and the Rolling Stones each received six. In terms of songs, the top three positions were occupied by Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” with six of the playlists featuring the track, followed by Free’s “All Right Now,” and Thin Lizzy’s “The Boys Are Back in Town” with four features each. The following eight tracks all received 3 counts: Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’,” Eagles’ “Hotel California,” Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride,” Boston’s “More Than a Feeling,” Steely Dan’s “Reelin’ in the Years,” the Police’s “Roxanne,” the Rolling Stones’ “Start Me Up,” and Bachman Turner Overdrive’s “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet.” An additional 30 tracks were featured across two of the sources, leaving a remaining 382 songs with one mention. Throughout, the most frequently named artists either originated or resided in North America during their careers. No artists in the nine sources originated from South America, Africa, Asia, or Oceanic countries other than Australia or New Zealand.

As Figure 1 illustrates, 59.6% of artists across the data set originated from North America while the United Kingdom accounted for 34.2%. From the 465 tracks across the playlists and compilation albums, all songs were sung in English.

Figure 1. Dad rock by location. The data was divided into four continental categories: North America (representing the U.S.A. and Canada); Australia and New Zealand; Europe (countries only in the European Union); and the United Kingdom.

Figure 2 details the decades in which the dad rock tracks were released. The earliest song mentioned in this data was Chuck Berry’s 1958 single “Johnny B. Goode,” while the most recent was Parquet Courts’ “Total Football” from 2018. Spanning over six decades and seven categories, this subsection is the most diverse, indicating that over forty percent of dad rock tracks were released in the 1970s, followed by the 1980s and 2000s. Songs from the 1950s through to the 1980s make up 71.8% of the total data.

Figure 2. Dad rock by year.

The final category depicted in Figure 3, gender of the artists, was divided into three subcategories: all male, all female, and other. The “other” category represented non-binary artists. Significantly, men accounted for an overwhelming majority, or 97.5%, of the data.

Figure 3. Dad rock by gender.

The artists most frequently mentioned are primarily from the U.S.A. and have long-spanning careers in which they accrued the critical and commercial success required to become of heritage or canonized status. For example, American artist, Tom Petty, had a career which began in the early 1970s and spanned until his final live performance in 2017. While the Traveling Wilburys only received one mention across the data set, the supergroup of Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jeff Lyne, Roy Orbison, and Petty exemplifies Petty’s status amongst canonized rock artists and his conflation with good rock music. However, with newer artists like Wilco included, bands who continue to make music after their peak of critical and commercial success, and emulate classic rock conventions, are likely to be seen as passive or complacent enough to fit an aged stereotype. Further, artists who became popular in the 1960s or 1970s, such as Free and Steely Dan, demonstrate that the dad rock label is mainly applicable to those who were active during the youth of the fathers of today’s young people.

The lower percentage of tracks included in the data set from more recent decades demonstrates that rock music is rarely produced with the aim of fitting into the dad rock genre, rather, over time music becomes perceived as suitable for the label. Dad rock is able to exist as a popular form because it is applied to music already made popular. It is the core ideologies that propel meanings within rock which have landed the genre in association with a label as masculine and aged as dad. Canonization is a component of this, as it is a core process of ascribing cultural value to rock which results in a set of artists sustained as the exemplars of what notions of quality, or high art, looks and sounds like in the genre. The rock canon can be observed in dad rock through the inclusion of music which fits the criterion of popular guitar-based music, which is played on standard instrumentation, sung in English, and played around concepts of originality and enduring appeal. As discussed earlier, canonized rock predominantly hails from the US and UK. This is reflected within this data set, as the majority of artists are based in the US or UK. Further, exemplified through the identities of the performers in the top mentioned artists described above, dad rock is primarily performed by white men. Additionally, in this data set, a strong representation of the music of the 1960s and particularly the 1970s is evident, thereby adhering to the canon’s preference of older rock.

This preferential treatment emulates the conflation of high art meanings with early rock. With songs from the ’50s to the ’80s making up almost three quarters of dad rock playlists and albums show that artists who were in or in close proximity to the baby boomer generation are more likely to be categorized as “dad.” The manifestation of dad rock in popular discourse exemplifies rock music’s foundations in baby boomer culture. While young people learn about classic rock through promotion of the rock canon, products from consumer industries around classic rock, or through the passing of heritage rock down from family members who experienced it firsthand, the degree of separation achieved through received nostalgia imbues the music with meanings which lead to the dad style modifier.

The final, and perhaps most obvious point, is the utmost prevalence of male musicians throughout the nine playlists and compilation albums. As 2.5% of the data is occupied by female, gender noncomforming, or mixed bands or artists, only a small space is allocated for non-men to be included under the dad rock label. However, the saturation of all-male bands in this data set demonstrates that it is the musicians suited to the masculine role of the father who are more likely to be perceived as dad rock. This prevalence may be due to the broader masculinization of rock and its general exclusion or erasure of women, supported by processes like canonization which favor male representation. Yet, the masculine archetype referenced by the very mention of the dad modifier sets a precedent by which rock music produced by male artists is primarily what is inducted into dad rock discourse.

Dad rock, therefore, can be defined as a guitar-based popular music pervaded by canonical conventions and is primarily produced by men old enough to father the younger generations. It is rock music which is aurally or visually identifiable as a product of the baby boomer generation, or it is rock produced by aging male artists after they have reached their peak of commercial and critical success. Classic, heritage, or canonical rock is likely to be perceived as dad rock due to its male domination and its origins in the 1960s to the 1980s. Earlier in this article, the first artist to be labeled as dad rock in print media, Jeff Tweedy, was quoted: “… when people say dad rock, they actually just mean rock”. Dad rock is representative of the rock ethos (Hiatt par. 2). With rock broadly recognized as a male form, the rock canon sustaining value and popular attention surrounding older music, and the perception of rock as integral to baby boomer culture, Tweedy’s remarks are contextualized. If these are some of the processes which propel meaning in rock culture, all rock is susceptible to the dad rock label.

“Carry on Wayward Son”: Conclusion

There is, of course, an illimitable number of analytical angles through which dad rock could be observed. While the preceding section outlined a definition of dad rock, the following perspectives described in this conclusion will bring theoretical depth to our understanding of the emerging categorization. As I observed, dad rock has been articulated and culturally mediated by journalistic media and commercial music industry entities; the audience, however, has been absent from the dad rock discourse. Future analysis might consider how audiences perceive dad rock, and further, how this audience interacts with the genre. As dad rock is a label ascribed to preexisting music, there is an element of recategorizing genres and reworking their meanings, considering this through lenses of fan interaction or memefication could bring further depth to our understanding of the genre.

Additionally, more attention could be paid to the 2.5% of non-male performers in this data set in order to investigate how performers who are not cis-gendered men are able to be conflated with a genre which implies meanings of age and heteronormative masculinity. To call guitar-based popular music dad rock implies shifting perceptions surrounding rock, exemplifying how audiences are categorizing rock by its ties to masculinity and age. This gestures toward what the current status of rock is in popular culture. Further research to capture this current status on local, national, and global levels would benefit scholarly conceptions of where the genre stands and what its future may look like.

However, what has been made clear in this exploration is that by looking to preexisting literature regarding core ideologies surrounding rock culture, dad rock can be explained. To work toward a definition and to tangibly account for what has been labeled as dad rock, I analyzed data extracted from playlists and compilation albums created by major streaming platforms and music industry labels, the contemporary cultural intermediaries. While this found that dad rock is predominantly rock music of the 1960s to the 1980s, produced by men, it also demonstrated the sheer variety of styles and artists which come to fall under the label. Again, due to rock culture’s entrenchment in masculinity, canonical conventions, and baby boomer culture, all rock music is susceptible to becoming perceived as dad rock.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).