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Do kids really like oldies?

One factor that is ignored here is the effect of the video games Rock Band and Guitar Hero. I think they're old hat now, but in the 2000's and into the early 2010's they were very popular video games, and most of the songs on them were classic rock, classic hits, or oldies.

Video games were a very big deal to young people back in the day, as they still are now. So while I have no idea whether young kids really like oldies and classic rock, the Millennials got exposed to a lot of it through Rock Band and Guitar Hero. My former GF's kid (now in his late 20's) was playing Rock Band (or Guitar Hero) and the song by the Smiths came up -- Stop Me If You Think You've Heard This One Before -- I was amazed it was even on the game. It was a minor Alt-rock hit from 1987 that only got played in my metro on AM'er KJET. Good song, though...

And a lot of Millennials got exposed to it, and other similar 80's, 70's rock and alt stuff through that game. Ever since the internet and the advent of the video game soundtrack, there have been many ways for younger people to get exposed to older music. I don't know how many times I've checked out a YouTube music track to see in the comments "________________________ [fill in name of prominent video game] brought me here," because the song was playing on the soundtrack, or included in the game in some other fashion (on the 'radio' in the 'car' you drive in the game, etc.).
 
boombox4 said:
One factor that is ignored here is the effect of the video games Rock Band and Guitar Hero.
Click to expand...
You bring up a very good point that we often miss. The best video games sell more than the box office of the biggest movies, and even mid-range ones are stronger than most Hollywood movies. The influence they have... in this case over music... is huge.

We talk a lot about some songs have a second life due to inclusion in a movie, but that's nothing when compared to the lasting effect of being in a game.
 
DavidEduardo said:
You bring up a very good point that we often miss. The best video games sell more than the box office of the biggest movies, and even mid-range ones are stronger than most Hollywood movies. The influence they have... in this case over music... is huge.

We talk a lot about some songs have a second life due to inclusion in a movie, but that's nothing when compared to the lasting effect of being in a game.
Click to expand...
While I'm not a gamer by any stretch, I have quite a few friends who were introduced to a bunch of 40s/50s music from a game, I think it was called Fallout or something like that. Songs like "Orange Colored Sky" by Nat King Cole and whatnot. Pretty neat-o! I know a couple of people who listen to that stuff even when they're not playing the game after being introduced to it there...
 
DavidEduardo said:
You bring up a very good point that we often miss. The best video games sell more than the box office of the biggest movies, and even mid-range ones are stronger than most Hollywood movies. The influence they have... in this case over music... is huge.
Click to expand...
Grand Theft Auto has its own "radio stations" -- including jingles and DJs -- that players can listen to, including music from at least as far back as the late 1960s:

musictalkers.com

Study Reveals the Ultimate GTA Playlist: Top 10 Most Popular Tracks with Over a Billion Streams

A new study conducted by gaming experts from GTA BOOM has assembled the ultimate playlist from Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto video game franchise, analyzing a whopping 1,764 songs, 1,320 artists and 82 in-game radio stations.
musictalkers.com musictalkers.com
 
almaniac27 said:
Fallout definitely had an impact. One of the games in that series included the song "Big Iron" by Marty Robbins and that led to a resurgence in popularity for that song as well as the album it came from. There are countless memes based on that album cover.
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Oh yeah, I forgot about that (I don't play the game, so I'm not all that familiar with what songs were used in it).
I was part of a club at my college that played a lot of music. Just a couple of us were musicians, but we'd get together in a big group and play and sing. It seemed like every doggone time I got out the six-string, someone wanted to do "Big Iron." I've probably played that doggone song five dozen times over the last couple of years...

That whole album is really fantastic. I actually knew a couple of people in high school who had the LP. I've got it, too - a Columbia mono 2-eye pressing from the early 60s along with an original 45 of "El Paso," probably my favorite tune from that album.
 
Train Wrecks Я Us.

"Jailhouse Rock" Elvis
"Mandy" Barry Manilow
"Cheap Sunglasses" ZZ Top (long version)

Followed by "The Gweatest Wadio Station Evew. WZKY W272DK Albemale."

And CBS News.
 
vchimpanzee said:
Train Wrecks Я Us.

"Jailhouse Rock" Elvis
"Mandy" Barry Manilow
"Cheap Sunglasses" ZZ Top (long version)

Followed by "The Gweatest Wadio Station Evew. WZKY W272DK Albemale."

And CBS News.
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Were there any liners, jingles or DJ gab between those songs, or just cold segues? And what's with the Elmer Fudd ID?

I was listening to SiriusXM's Prime Country channel over the weekend, during a jockless stretch of music, and heard Conway Twitty's slow, sad "That's My Job" -- a song written about a son's dealing with the death of his father -- segue right into the hot beginning of Shania Twain's "Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under"! Not only a total shift in tempo but in mood as well.
 
kevtronics said:
Grand Theft Auto has its own "radio stations" -- including jingles and DJs -- that players can listen to, including music from at least as far back as the late 1960s:
Click to expand...
I did not know that. But other than playing PacMan when it was new and a version of Mahjong on my iPad while in waiting rooms or the like, I have never played any video game.
 
DavidEduardo said:
You bring up a very good point that we often miss. The best video games sell more than the box office of the biggest movies, and even mid-range ones are stronger than most Hollywood movies. The influence they have... in this case over music... is huge.

We talk a lot about some songs have a second life due to inclusion in a movie, but that's nothing when compared to the lasting effect of being in a game.
Click to expand...
I know it surprised me. Seeing my former GF's son play Guitar Hero was an eye opener. I know in some sectors of the music business there is talk of trying to get your songs on a video game soundtrack, as it's another potential revenue stream.
 
Yeah, that's pretty bad.

My Part 15 station is automated 98% of the time, but I've gotten it so that trainwrecks are relatively uncommon.

They still happen, though.

c
 
OK, train wreck experts, how do you get from an uptempo song to a ballad (or vice versa) without creating a train wreck? Van Halen/Stylistics doesn't sound awful to me, especially since the VH song has a nice long fade and "Betcha" his a nice long intro. Just let the songs fade into each other, with maybe a calm-sounding jock talking over the transition. So what's the rule here, or is it always up to some individual's personal preference?
 
CTListener said:
OK, train wreck experts, how do you get from an uptempo song to a ballad (or vice versa) without creating a train wreck? Van Halen/Stylistics doesn't sound awful to me, especially since the VH song has a nice long fade and "Betcha" his a nice long intro. Just let the songs fade into each other, with maybe a calm-sounding jock talking over the transition. So what's the rule here, or is it always up to some individual's personal preference?
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They don't have jocks and there wasn't anything between the songs. I was going by the fact they are such different songs. This is what "We play everything" stations do.

And what's Van Halen doing on s station that still plays The Beach Boys and Elvis?
 
CTListener said:
OK, train wreck experts, how do you get from an uptempo song to a ballad (or vice versa) without creating a train wreck? Van Halen/Stylistics doesn't sound awful to me, especially since the VH song has a nice long fade and "Betcha" his a nice long intro. Just let the songs fade into each other, with maybe a calm-sounding jock talking over the transition. So what's the rule here, or is it always up to some individual's personal preference?
Click to expand...

I play the Stylistics song on the Urban AC sister station of The Eighties Channel™ in Albuquerque, where it is very likely to have something like Usher or TLC bookending it.

(And yes, people, I am the programmer who was tapped to kill the Smooth Jazz format of The Oasis in December.)
 
CTListener said:
OK, train wreck experts, how do you get from an uptempo song to a ballad (or vice versa) without creating a train wreck?
Click to expand...
As the great Casey Kasem once said after trying to segue from “Dare Me” to “Shannon”, “When you come out of those uptempo goddamn numbers, man, it’s impossible to make those transitions!”
 
kevtronics said:
Jingle packages used to have "fast-to-slow" and "slow-to-fast" jingles for this purpose.
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Even in the era of acapella jingles we had tempo shifts both up and down and even slow to medium and the like.

In AC formats I liked to use short listener liners to "mash" the rough transition. No bed on 'em, just a very "cassette quality" listener voice saying something like "I love 11-Q". (Actually "Once Q Me Gusta")
 


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