70's 80's format are younger demos listening?

[firepoint525]

but, why would a 20 year old listen to music that is 20 years older than he/she?

Why Not? Heck, here in 2012, I enjoy music of the 50's through the 80's.....here in my mid 40's!

I'm 48 myself. I grew up hearing plenty of '50s oldies, so what makes them think that I wouldn't still like them?

Well at least I never heard "Boys of Summer' on there. At least not after the station modified the format a year before the launch of "Hot".

I'd rather hear "New York Minute" anytime over "Boys...""Boys of Summer" is way overplayed these days, just about anywhere. Enough

Google "Johnny Can't Read" on youtube for a great Don Henley song that radio missed. The video was cool, too!

Quite amazes me why stations cannot figure out that they are burning out so many songs, so frequently, but rely on "music tests" to keep on playing these tunes to death. Nothing wrong with the artists you mentioned above, but keep them in check! We don't need to hear "Already Gone" every day of the darn week! People complain about repetition, but people keep choosing the same songs in tests.....does not make any sense at all.

I have a name for that. It's called "successful greatest hits album syndrome." The Eagles first greatest hits album was one of the biggest sellers of all-time, so I get the feeling that radio programmers play music from it, even to the exclusion of other material by the Eagles. "Already Gone" only reached #32, and "Desperado" didn't chart at all, so how else can we explain those two still getting airplay?

 

[oldies76]

I know this is probably before I was born but I believe DJ's should have say so in the music. I also feel radio stations should take requests more seriously. Have you ever noticed whenever a radio station gets a request its usually a song that is already pounded to death, however if someone requests a song not currently on the playlist it is ignored.

You are 110% correct! Actually, it is not even a "request". Since radio plays these songs to death anyways, chances are you'll hear your "request" within the hour anyways. But like you said, choose a "stiff" (term used by certain posters...songs that no longer test well in radio) and radio will never play it. The DJ will tell you....."I'll check the computer to see if we have that song"....such nonsense!

Radio is not for the "customers" anymore, it's for their own $$$.

 

[oldies76]

Google "Johnny Can't Read" on youtube for a great Don Henley song that radio missed.

#42 in '82.....nice song, but never heard it on radio back then. Thanks.

 

[firepoint525]

Google "Johnny Can't Read" on youtube for a great Don Henley song that radio missed.

#42 in '82.....nice song, but never heard it on radio back then. Thanks.

I'm thinking that that was the first single from the I Can't Stand Still album, but it was the next one, "Dirty Laundry," that broke through for him and made him a household name. Still, I find it hard to believe that a former Eagle, particularly one who sang lead on most of their hits, would have had any difficulty at all establishing himself in a solo career. Go figure! : ???

 

[viper452]

The 80s pop songs played on FM radio suck in my opinon and anything that resembles COX's The Point branded stations.

That's because the staff playing those "played to death" songs probably never lived in the early 80's, when the 80's mattered the most. :

The 80's are not just "Boys of Summer", "I Melt With You" and "What I Like About You". Sad, isn't it?

LOL, all 3 of those songs are great. timeless 80s songs.

 

[viper452]

My girlfriend considers any radio stations that does not play music within the last 10 years oldies. She even refers to Variety Hits such Max 98.3 in Lakeland, Fl and 80's stations such as the former 101.5 The Point in Tampa Oldies

However she does have a point. Her dad was telling me that when he grew up in the 70's stations playing 50's and early 60's were considered oldies.

I do believe that younger people are in fact listening to older music. Even people that aren't even 20 yet listen to the Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin. As well as The Ramones, Joy Divison and so on. Your Classic Rock stations do in fact get quite a few younger people listening. Not every 22 year old wants to hear LMFAO ever hour.

Your girlfriend is nuts

 

[gamefreak]

My girlfriend considers any radio stations that does not play music within the last 10 years oldies. She even refers to Variety Hits such Max 98.3 in Lakeland, Fl and 80's stations such as the former 101.5 The Point in Tampa Oldies

However she does have a point. Her dad was telling me that when he grew up in the 70's stations playing 50's and early 60's were considered oldies.

I do believe that younger people are in fact listening to older music. Even people that aren't even 20 yet listen to the Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin. As well as The Ramones, Joy Divison and so on. Your Classic Rock stations do in fact get quite a few younger people listening. Not every 22 year old wants to hear LMFAO ever hour.

Your girlfriend is nuts

Oh come on, don't say that. I personally wouldn't consider anything newer than 30 years old oldies. 80's and 90's I would consider Adult Hits and AC for the softer selections.

When 101.1 WCBS launched its oldies format in 1972 it played 1955 to 1964 material. With a limited amount of newer material and two new songs an hour. The oldest musc on WCBS in 1972 and only 17 years old.

The music off of Alanis Morissette's "Jagged Little Pill" is 17 years old today. Yet the music still sees limited airplay on Hot AC, AC, Adult Hits and other stations. The definition of the oldies must have change a lot.

 

[viper452]

I dont consider anything above 1974 as oldies, and Im 31.

 

[oldies76]

In 1983, music of 1966, 17 years ago then, (and the rest of the 50's and the 60's) were considered oldies...

Alanis Morissette's music of 17 years ago today (1995), would then be considered an oldie...or classic hits...

It's the same thing, just two different time periods.

 

[oldies76]

However she does have a point. Her dad was telling me that when he grew up in the 70's stations playing 50's and early 60's were considered oldies.

Exactly.

 

[landtuna]

I'm going to propose a new dichotomy. Oldies is a genre in addition to a period of time.

The First Generation of RnR Oldies began in the mid-50's with the BeBop sounds of Bill Haley and Elvis and ended with the coming of the British Invasion.

The Second Generation runs from the British Invasion through the early 80's ending when Rock began splitting into many smaller sub-genre's.

Oldies refers to a collection of diverse music from BeBop thru Girl Groups thru Elvis ballads, surf, protest rock, Folk Rock, psychedelic rock, Country crossovers, even some modern Standards and a few foreign language and comedy songs. It was an era of innovation and unparallelled experimentation which has not been seen since.

Note that I have omitted Disco from the Oldies genre because most PD's do not consider Disco to belong to Oldies. There are some Disco songs that would fit the Oldies genre though.

Just like Standards refer to the music of the 30's, 40's and early 50's (even though covered by current singers) so do Oldies refer to the popular music of the late 50's, 60's, 70's and early 80's. The chronology stops there though. Music of the 90's, even if it should still be played 40 years from now, will never be known as Oldies. Just old music.

 

[MikeStandardsFromIndiana]

Standards for me is 30's & 40's
Oldies are for me 50's & 60's
Classic Hits would be bound to 70's, 80's & 90's

but thats how i would look at it in these day and times of subsidizing decades

 

[willdav713]

What about the 00's what would you call them? Y2k Hits, Turn of the Century Music? Double 0 Music? Y2k would refer to the year 2000, but again what will you call that decade of music, as your definition of Classic Hits only spans to 1999.

 

[landtuna]

Standards for me is 30's & 40's
Oldies are for me 50's & 60's
Classic Hits would be bound to 70's, 80's & 90's

but thats how i would look at it in these day and times of subsidizing decades

I think categorizing music is more complicated than picking a time frame. For instance, during the 30's and 40's you had some pretty diverse music from crooners, Big Band (Swing), Jazz, girl groups etc. "Standards" doesn't adequately describe all these. And, Standards lasted well into the 50's and some might say even into the 60's as well. Although Standards were eclipsed by popular music of several genres there were plenty of songs by Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Patti Page and Perry Como during that time.

I've never understood the difference between Oldies and Classic Hits since the playlists overlap so much and true Oldies (Rick Nelson, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry etc.) are never heard so we should cut the crap and just refer to Oldies as Oldies and relegate Classic Hits to someone's private playlist. Anything much later than the mid-80's is only "classic" because it was the only genre present but no one will ever convince me that grunge or hair metal are true classic music forms (for instance).

I think it may have been Eduardo who said these classifications exist for marketing purposes. They do not seem to define music as succinctly as we might like. For me the rock era runs roughly from '56 thru '84. Those are what I would now call Oldies. And, like Standards, Oldies do not move with the calendar.

 

[firepoint525]

What about the 00's what would you call them? Y2k Hits, Turn of the Century Music? Double 0 Music? Y2k would refer to the year 2000, but again what will you call that decade of music, as your definition of Classic Hits only spans to 1999.

I like "the aughts" or "the double Os." "The early 2000s" is also good. I do NOT like "y2k" or "year 2000" (look, we know that 2000 was a year, why do we have to keep putting the word "year" in front of it?), because I think that most of us who lived through all the years of incessant y2k hype would like to forget about it! We don't want to be reminded of it anymore!

 

[willdav713]

What about the 00's what would you call them? Y2k Hits, Turn of the Century Music? Double 0 Music? Y2k would refer to the year 2000, but again what will you call that decade of music, as your definition of Classic Hits only spans to 1999.

I like "the aughts" or "the double Os." "The early 2000s" is also good. I do NOT like "y2k" or "year 2000" (look, we know that 2000 was a year, why do we have to keep putting the word "year" in front of it?), because I think that most of us who lived through all the years of incessant y2k hype would like to forget about it! We don't want to be reminded of it anymore!

I have to live y2k still because my canon vcr only timer records to 1999

 

[hornet61]

Good points. However, if you are going to program 70s and 80s music, remember that Top 40 radio of that era was very personality driven. The jocks of the time did a great job keeping the music flowing while presenting in a very entertaining way. Once such personality was M.G. "Machine Gun" Kelly. As a matter of fact, M.G. is available in syndication and sounds as great as he did then. http://www.radio-linx.com/M.G.html

...i'm all for personality radio, but i prefer quip rather than dribble. Unfortunately too many DJ's do too much inane talk and no music, especially solicited poll topics, that take up about 20 minutes in between songs. I would rather hear a witty DJ that is clever and a master of the double entendre and can segue in ten words or less than DJ's that solict call-ins that ask such monumental questions such "What is the wierdest thing you saw you dog do" and crap like that...and the most annoying thing is a DJ that laughs after everyword he speaks, trying to give the impression that he is a funny and entertaining guy.

 

[Bill Shadowcat]

I dont consider anything above 1974 as oldies, and Im 31.

Same here!

Also, to my understanding, Classic Hits can be anything 1974-2003, but that varies. Most Classic Hits stations that I know of focus on the 70's and 80's with a little bit of 90's maybe.

 

[Lumekuninganna]

Standards for me is 30's & 40's
Oldies are for me 50's & 60's
Classic Hits would be bound to 70's, 80's & 90's

but thats how i would look at it in these day and times of subsidizing decades

I'm 27, and since this is how music was "classified" for me growing up, this is still how I view it. When I'm 80 years old, I'll still never think of music from the 70s and 80s as "oldies." Though I do think of the 90s as something separate, since it was my childhood.

I just wanted to say that there's an unfortunate difference between the minority (what I would consider serious music listeners, or those who can appreciate many genres/eras) and the majority (caught up in what's the hottest, etc). Many of us are proud to raise our hands and say, "Hey, I'm young and I still love psychedelic music." (true story) - But this doesn't create the target audience. The prime demographic will always be a much older crowd, and it's tough to hook in a younger crowd who really doesn't care about this music... you know, it's just meaningless old hippie music to them. Can they dance hard to it at the club? Nah. And stuff from the 70s? That's their parents' old dinosaur bands. Who wants to hear that? So as far as I see it, it's hard to grab someone whose taste hasn't matured.

Maybe if they slip some Andy Gibb into the background of a tween vampire movie...

 

[JH_Radio]

I'm 30 also. My thought process is doesn't your definition of Oldies depend on how old you are?
Standards are 30's and 40's Music.
Oldies is 1950's to 1974
Classic hits are 1974 to 1987
90's are GenX and 2000's is Y2K .
Keep in mind though I'm a radio geek, and classify formats different than most.
Radio-locator for instance classify's WOGL as Classic Hits. To me, its 60's-80's Oldies, and the Real Oldies format are 50's-70's Oldies. This, to me helps to break down the Oldies somewhat.
just like Hot AC in a lot of cases leans way to CHR for my tastes.
AC is in a lot of ways in the same camp.
formats are becoming too simular to each other, I think.