I love rock n' roll so put another dime in the jukebox, baby. O.K. So it's more like a dollar these days but, who cares? Let's pick a song and rock!

Over 35 years after Joan Jett made that classic lyric famous with her cover of the Arrows "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" many things have changed in the world of music. We went from vinyl to 8-tracks, from 8-tracks to cassettes, from cassettes to CDs, from CDs to mp3s, and finally from mp3s to streaming services as our primary source of day-to-day listening. Throughout all those changes, however, one source of music still remains and that is the jukebox. Walk into any bar or restaurant and odds are you'll find one there.

The history of the jukebox goes back farther than you may even realize. It was actually 129 years ago yesterday (November 23rd, 1889) that the very first jukebox was installed in San Francisco at the Palais Royal Hotel. Here's a video that gives us a little background on that very first jukebox:

From that day on the jukebox would continue to grow in popularity, peaking in the 1950s before seeing a decline with the advent of portable radios and cassette players. Since then the jukebox has survived and still "gets some play" from music fans.

In celebration of the jukebox's 129th birthday I decided to do some searching to find out which classic rock bands and songs get the most plays. The most recent statistics I found are from the major jukebox distributor TouchTunes who, at the start of 2018, tallied up the total number of plays for the year 2017. I was happy to see that the top played genre for that year was Rock which got 40% of the year's total plays. Second on that list was Country at 23%.

Before we get into the breakdown of lists a quick mention of the Connecticut and New York results. According to TouchTunes The Rolling Stones can get plenty of jukebox satisfaction in and around the CT/NY area. The Stones are not only the top played artist in Connecticut and New York also rule New Jersey, Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Here's a breakdown of lists that include classic rock artists:

TOP TEN PLAYED ARTISTS:
1. Christ Stapleton
2. AC/DC
3. Eric Church
4. Lynyrd Skynyrd
5. Bruno Mars
6. The Rolling Stones
7. Luke Bryan
8. Eagles
9. Johnny cash
10. George Strait

 

TOP TEN PLAYED SONGS:
1. "Tennessee Whiskey" by Chris Stapleton
2. "Blue Ain't Your Color" by Keith Urban
3. "Body Like A Back Road" by Sam Hunt
4. "Dirty On My Boots" by Jon Pardi
5. "Copperhead Road" by Steve Earle
6. "Friends In Low Places" by Garth Brooks
7. "Shape Of You" by Ed Sheeran
8. "That's What I Like" by Bruno Mars
9. "Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen
10. "24K Magic" by Bruno Mars

 

TOP TEN PLAYED ROCK SONGS
1. "Fat Bottomed Girls" by Queen
2. "Don't Stop Believin'" by Journey
3. "Hotel California" by Eagles
4. "The Sound Of Silence" by Disturbed
5. "Simple Man" by Lynyrd Skynyrd
6. "You Shook Me All Night Long" by AC/DC
7. "Pour Some Sugar On Me" by Def Leppard
8. "Heathens" by Twenty One Pilots
9. "All Summer Long" by Kid Rock
10. "Thunderstruck" by AC/DC

 

To see the complete 2017 year-end TouchTunes results go HERE.

Now let's but some coins in that jukebox, baby and request Joan Jett's "I Love Rock N' Roll"!

You can listen to Eric Senich live on Saturdays from 10am to 3pm on 95.1 FM. You can also listen online by clicking here or by downloading the i95 ROCK Mobile App.

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