I was reading this thread about NYC oldies station playing 90s songs, and it raises question about what “oldies” really is. Is it songs from a specific era? Specific genres of music? Or just any song that’s old?
Anything my students bitch about when I tune to it on the van radio. 
Twenty years.
Is that the same for Classic Rock or is it less? I say that because I’ve noticed my local Classic Rock station has been playing Nirvana, Pearl Jam, and Smashing Pumpkins for the last five years. They’ve added Green Day and Foo Fighters in the last two years.
Seems to me like oldies are getting older. When I was a kid in the mid-late 80s, the oldies station mostly played late 50s-early 60s music. So, in the 25-30 years old range. Now, they still play those early 60s songs, up through the mid-80s. So, 30-50 year old music now. Classic Rock used to just mean “70s Rock + some Doors and Stones”, but now it seems like they’re extending it into the grunge era while skipping over hair metal entirely. Your local stations may be different. Though probably not, since they’re all owned by Clear Channel.
I assume anything played by Real Oldies 1250.
Our local classic rock station is doing a sort of weird lateral move- they always have played 60s era bands like the Beatles, Stones, Steppenwolf, etc… but now they’re moving more into folk-rock type stuff that’s more typically played on the Oldies stations. They’re also starting to play some more hair metal type stuff like Guns & Roses and Motley Crue. They’re not up to the grunge era just yet.
It seems to me that there may be a sort of three-tiered radio scene growing- the top 40 stuff that’s played currently, the “last 2-3 decades” stuff, and “Oldies”. People in their 40s and 50s listen to the “last 2-3 decades” stations, and older folks listen to "Oldies’.
Right now, “Oldies” is 50s, 60s and some 70s stuff, the "last 2-3 decades stuff is 80s and 90s, and the early 2000s stuff is kind of in purgatory for another few years.
“Oldies” originally were any songs that had dropped off the current top 40. Thus last year’s #1 hit was billed as a “Golden Oldie” on top 40 stations.
By the 60s, the title usually went to songs of the 50s. They weren’t being played on the radio, but were more often on compilation albums (like the Cruisin’ series). By the 70s, it was a standard name for any pre-Beatles songs.
Some stations went to the format, and started adding late 60s songs. The window for their playlist keeps changing, usually sticking with songs 20 years or older. 50s songs have dropped away these days, and 60s and 70s became classic rock.
When I was a kid in the '80s, oldies were from the '50s and '60s. Nowadays, songs of that age are from the '80s and '90s. Yup, I’m getting old.
As it stands now, my local FM oldies station has dropped 1950s and early 1960s songs and added 1980s songs. No 1990s.
My local classic rock station ranges from Zeppelin, Aerosmith, Guns N Roses, Foo Fighters and other 1990s acts, but mostly hard rock, not any 1960s folk rock, Rolling Stones, or Beatles.
Really depends on the radio show producer and station.
Thank goodness for Pandora and other internet streams.
“Those Oldies But Goodies” was a minor hit for Little Caesar and the Romans. The year was 1961.
So, yeah, oldies are anything early than this morning.
And no, the pizza chain was already in business.
There was a thread on this few years ago, before I joined the Dope. People’s views were different. My take is anything prior to 1980 is oldies. Ditto for earlier than 1970 which is 45 years ago. Regardless if it is a one hit wonder or a song by a legend like the Beatles, it’s an oldies.
As for the 1990’s while those songs are old and can be called “old school”, for the most part 90’s music is not oldies. Same with the 1980’s. So in conclusion I would have to say 1970’s and earlier are oldies. Again it is a term with no fixed meaning and is highly subjective and open to one’s perceptions.
My oldies station K-Earth 101 here in L.A has taken up 1980’s music, but not 1990’s.
What my parents listened to when I was a kid. However that was the 80s and 90s, and the music on oldies was usually 60s and 70s music. So the music was 20 years old which would make 90s stuff oldies.
I don’t feel old enough to listen to oldies. and Smells like Teen Spirit is not oldies.
If prior to 1980 is oldies then doesn’t that imply that prior to 1970 is oldies as well?
I’d say it’s generational, rather than specifically a period. It’s when you can notice a definite shift in style. Since about the 1920s, each decade has very distinctive music that represents it, but from the 90s on it’s blurred a lot. You can point to specific acts, I guess, but for the most part I don’t think there’s really a distinctive 90s, 2000s, or 2010s musical style.
On top 40 stations, I guess anything that’s fallen off the list is an oldie. On AOR stations, I guess anything pre 90s is an oldie.
Subjectively, I think of “oldies” as songs from when I was a kid or before I was born. This means that songs that are not now oldies will never reach that status for me. Whether a song is an “oldie” is, by this standard, relative to the individual.
When I first heard a dedicated “oldies” station it was the early 80s and they played only stuff up through the mid-60s, if that. Since then, my perception of an “oldie” has increased by around a year every 2 years of calendar time. So, in the early 2000s, early 70s could be an oldie to me. Now, late 70s also seem like oldies. Early 80s are on the cusp. I can intellectually understand since they are fairly old but it’s still jarring to me. In a decade or so, the songs from the early to mid 80s that I heard at the time will probably seem like oldies, but there is a lot of stuff from the 80s through today that I only discovered in the past 10 years which will probably never feel like oldies to me unless I live to be 100 something.
I have a hunch that each station has an intended target audience. Whatever the target audience for a station considers oldies, the station does too.
It’s what my parents called “oldies” and what was on the oldies stations/programs as I was growing up. This includes (among others) swing, doo-wop and Motown stuff. I’d say everything from ~1960 and earlier. I’ve always identified the *newer *stuff by decades; e.g. 70s, 80s, etc. For me, “oldies” is still mainstream music that was popular before ~1960. All that being said, I understand the commercial and popular migration of the term as time has marched on.