The Curious Apparent Durability of 1970s / 1980s Pop

[FlikTheBlue]

@TriPolar

Popularity on the radio required a broad appeal. The actual change that ended that era wasn’t video. Video started in the 80s, but not long later it was online access to music that changed everything.

This is a big part of it as well. Back in the day Dick Clark, Casey Kasem, and the MTV VJs were able to influence when a certain type of music music had reached its expiration date by pushing a new sound. Now we don’t have anyone like that. Simon Cowell doesn’t come close. The result is that the style that happened to be in place when the internet took off has stuck around a lot longer than styles used to sick around.

[joebuck20]

@LSLGuy

I htink some folks are confusing “the oldies” with old music.

IMO “The oldies” is stuck in the 1950s - 1960s to mayyybe early 1970s. Back around 2000 when my contemporaries had teenage kids, the kids referred to 70s-80s music as “geezer rock”, not “the oldies”. The term still meant “obsolete & vaguely embarrassing” to them, just like “moldy oldies” was the term we used when I was a teen in the 1970s to refer to the 1950s music.

As to what kids are doing / saying now in the 2020s I have no way to say. I just don’t hang with that crowd.

Where I live there’s an oldies station that focuses pretty much on stuff like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, The Temptations, the various girl groups produced by Phil Spector, and early Beatles tunes like “Love Me Do” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” with some singer-songwriter music from the '70s sprinkled in like Cat Stevens, Carly Simon and Harry Chapin.

[FlikTheBlue]

@joebuck20

Where I live there’s an oldies station that focuses pretty much on stuff like Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, The Temptations, the various girl groups produced by Phil Spector, and early Beatles tunes like “Love Me Do” and “I Want to Hold Your Hand” with some singer-songwriter music from the '70s sprinkled in like Cat Stevens, Carly Simon and Harry Chapin.

We had a station like that when I was growing up that played music from the 50s. 60s, and 70s. That station is still around, but now they play music from the 80s and 90s, with an occasional disco hit from groups like the Beegees.

[ZipperJJ]

@Spice_Weasel

Your observation is curious, because I hear an inordinate amount of 90s music everywhere I go. “Semi-Charmed Life” at the grocery store, Sugar Ray at the bar, Green Day at the steakhouse. I like a fair amount of 90s music but there was a lot of tripe as well, and they don’t seem to discriminate. The last time I was at my friend’s bar they had a music video marathon of pretty much every terrible song from the 90s. It was torture.

That’s because GenX and older Millennials are old enough to be the “target audience” now. I LOVE going to the grocery store and hearing 80s and 90s music, and I notice it, and I know exactly what they’re trying to do (get me to say “I love going to the grocery store” and here I am). The people doing the programming for the grocery store, steakhouse, and from what I’ve observed the ballpark as well, are GenX and older Millennials. They know what gets our (and their) toes tappin’ while we’re spending big bucks.

The bar, that’s usually a jukebox hooked up to jukebox software like TouchTunes and it’s the people sitting next to you controlling the playlist, unless it’s a DJ but then the DJ is playing what the crowd wants anyway.

[LSLGuy]

@Sam_Stone

The answer is that they were all written by Max Martin, a Swedish professional contract songwriter. And this is just a small sample of his hit songs. He’s now the biggest songwriter since Lennon and McCartney.

This week The Economist has a video on exactly Max’s impacts:

Behind the data: the secret to songwriting

[Die_Capacitrix]

I don’t listen to the radio, except when I’m at the gym. Fortunately they use a website, so when I hear a song I like, when I go home, I can look it up and add it to a playlist. One such: Shotgun (George Ezra song) [2018]

And if I’m out and about, and I hear something interesting, I use Shazam to identify it. Even if it’s an older song.

Most recent song I “Shazamed” was when I was in McDonald’s. It’s new. Really new, as in 2 months old. Much of the McDonald’s playlist is newer music.

Baby Said

I have two songs from my last visit to a Five Guys.

• “Welcome to the Circus” from the album Afterlife, released in 2022.
• Hollywood Hills (2011).

From different visits to McDonald’s:

• How Will I Know (Whitney Houston) 1985.
• Snap (Rosa Linn song) [2022]

So if you want to hear newer music, go eat a hamburger. Or go to the gym.

Most music just goes in one ear and out the other. You want to remember it? Use Shazam, or concentrate on the music so you can get enough of the lyrics to find the song later.

The other option? Shut Up and Dance [2014] This one I got from a colleague in Santiago who loves music.