For 40 years, classic rock was more or less the same.

Starting in the mid-1980s, classic rock became a distinct national radio format: a familiar, heavily male, guitar-centered library of music from the 1960s and ’70s. Since then, the essential canon of 300 to 400 songs hasn’t changed much.

At the center, like the Bach-Brahms-Beethoven trinity in classical music, was The Beatles, The Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin, followed by Pink Floyd, The Who and Queen. Mixed into the rotation were second-tier bands like Boston, Lynyrd Skynrd and The Allman Brothers.

When Generation X came of age, softer 1970s staples like Steely Dan and Chicago were pushed aside for bands like Nirvana and Pearl Jam, but the concept remained the same: guitar-driven rock, mostly by white men. Millennials did the same, adding pop-punk and garage-rock revivalists like Green Day and The Strokes and breathing new life into overlooked anthems through video games like “Guitar Hero” without changing the formula.

Now, Gen Z is rewriting the rules entirely.

With neither first-hand nor second-hand nostalgia for classic rock, younger listeners are picking and choosing from all different eras of rock ‘n’ roll, adding songs to a generational playlist based on little more than vibes.

The result is a new canon that is more eclectic, with more women and gay artists and more attuned to a momentary mood than the album-oriented rock long favored by baby boomers and their gatekeepers in the music industry.

I first realized this shift was happening when my teenage daughter began spontaneously singing along to Supertramp’s “Breakfast in America” in the car one day. Her younger brother then asked his guitar teacher if he could learn Electric Light Orchestra’s “Mr. Blue Sky.” And all four kids kept demanding to hear Metallica’s “Master of Puppets” on long drives.

The reasons were obvious to them, if not me. The Supertramp song and an early 2000s remake of it are popular on TikTok, ELO anchored the opening scene in a “Guardians of the Galaxy” movie and Metallica’s epic was a plot point in “Stranger Things.”

Of course, my generation had revived “Stuck in the Middle With You” thanks to Quentin Tarantino, “Bohemian Rhapsody” due to “Wayne’s World” and “Pink Moon” because of a Volkswagen ad. But this was different. We were updating an established list of songs. Gen Z doesn’t care about the canon; they’re building their own list.

I decided to test what they knew. For a Gen X dad like me, who spent his childhood being force-fed boomer nostalgia, the results were mind-boggling.

They all knew The Stranglers’ “Golden Brown” but nothing by the Sex Pistols; David Bowie’s “Heroes” but not Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run”; the Eurythmics’ “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)” but not Soft Cell’s “Tainted Love”; and George Harrison’s cover of “Got My Mind Set on You” but not Tom Petty’s “Free Fallin’.”

They came across all of these songs not on FM radio or some Time-Life compilation of classic songs, but in the background of TikTok videos, online memes and appearances in TV shows and movies.

It’s tempting to say that they had bypassed the gatekeepers, but in reality they’ve just shifted them to a new set. Superhero movies, in particular, have become known for using classic rock for needle-drops: “Immigrant Song” when Thor regains his powers in “Ragnarok;” Redbone’s “Come and Get Your Love” when Star-Lord dances across another planet; Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” when “The Batman” is brooding.

In a way, director James Gunn is to Gen Z what the famed DJ Alan Freed was to boomers, a tastemaker introducing a new generation to the sounds that would define it. The first “Guardians of the Galaxy” soundtrack even reached No. 1 on the U.S. Billboard 200, becoming the first one in history consisting entirely of previously released songs in that spot.

Meanwhile, the songs used on TikTok and Instagram emerge through a messier, more participatory form of selection, becoming hits because they embody a certain mood or perfectly fit a certain type of video — or just gamed the algorithm in some way.

A comparatively obscure album track like The Beatles’ “I’m Only Sleeping” or or an old B-side like Pavement’s “Harness Your Hopes” can suddenly go viral not because a deejay promoted it, but because millions of teenagers needed a 15-second clip to accompany fit-check videos and photo montages.

This new canon is profoundly ahistorical. As my kids recognized “Everybody Wants to Rule the World,” but literally nothing by The Rolling Stones, I felt like Jack Black’s exasperated teacher in “School of Rock.” But when I look at the songs my kids know — from Kate Bush’s “Running Up That Hill” to Tracy Chapman’s “Fast Car” — I see a list that is more inclusive.

Where the old list was anchored almost exclusively by men with loud guitars, this revised canon presents a far more diverse and inclusive vision of the past. It trades post ‘60s boomer mythology for synth-pop, post-punk and dance tracks. And it ignores received music history while elevating marginalized artists who resonate more with the younger generation.

In the old canon, rock history was presented as a straight arrow: Robert Johnson’s acoustic Delta blues was electrified by Muddy Waters, distilled by Chuck Berry, amplified by Keith Richards and Eric Clapton, exploded by Jimi Hendrix and scaled into arena rock by Jimmy Page.

But Gen Z’s list is more of a random shuffle, where a proto-punk track, a disco anthem and a heavy metal dirge exist side by side with selections straight from a classic rock station’s regular rotation. It’s not as neat a story as the boomers’, but it’s more true to life, including all the artists who were left out of that oversimplified narrative.

Rock purists may shudder at kids who know “Take on Me” but not “Gimme Shelter.” But unlike the unchanging boomer canon, a new song can join the Gen Z playlist at any time.

A Gen Z-shaped classic-rock playlist:

• The Velvet Underground — “Sunday Morning” (1967)

• The Beatles — “Here Comes the Sun” (1969)

• Led Zeppelin — “Immigrant Song” (1970)

• Redbone — “Come and Get Your Love” (1973) 

• David Bowie — “Heroes” (1977) 

• Fleetwood Mac — “Dreams” (1977) 

• The Stranglers — “Golden Brown” (1981)

• The Cramps — “Goo Goo Muck” (1981) 

• The Clash — “Should I Stay or Should I Go” (1982)

• Bronski Beat — “Smalltown Boy” (1984) 

• George Michael — “Careless Whisper” (1984)

• Alphaville — “Forever Young” (1984)

• A-ha — “Take on Me” (1984)

• Kate Bush — “Running Up That Hill” (1985) 

• Tears for Fears — “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (1985)

• Metallica — “Master of Puppets” (1986)

• Tracy Chapman — “Fast Car” (1988) 

• The Cure — “Friday I’m in Love” (1992)

• The Cranberries — “Linger” (1993)

• Sade — “Kiss of Life” (1993)

• Mazzy Star — “Fade Into You” (1993) 

• Pavement — “Harness Your Hopes” (1999)

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