The oldies are the 50s through the mid-60s. I’m happy that NYC got it’s oldies station CBS-FM back but unhappy that they play “oldies” from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I want my doo wop, damn it.
Madonna 
John Dowland 
The Beatles were a 60’s act.
When I was a kid, Oldies radio invariably included 50’s (generally late) to 70’s (early). At one point I found a station that played mostly 50’s and 60’s and included early 50’s and late 40’s R&B. But these days self-styled Oldies stations seem to start at the late 60’s and go into the 80’s.
I consider anything prior to 1962/3, oldies and everything between 1962/3 and early 1980 as classic.
I suppose it’s a matter of opinion, but for me, I used the Rolling Stones/Beatles and U2 as cutoff points.
Anything after 1980 is what, new crap?
I would personally consider anything before 1990 to be an oldie.
But if we’re talking about how radio stations carve up the rock/pop universe, then it’s about style as well as year. Rock/pop before 1964 is all ‘oldies’, but over the next decade, it’s split into ‘classic rock’ which is (for the most part) the stuff that would have been played on FM radio during those years, and ‘oldies’ which is what would have been played (for the most part) strictly on AM stations during that period.
The Doors are classic rock, and the Carpenters are oldies, despite having been on the airwaves at about the same time.
What I’d call ‘lite’ soul - stuff like the Supremes - I think also gets played on ‘oldies’ stations. Again, the key is: was it played on (primarily white music) AM radio stations at the time?
Does any black artist besides Jimi Hendrix get played on classic rock stations, or is he the genre’s token black?
Personally, my oldies would be what Sean Factotum said, pre-Elvis. A local AM station used to play this stuff on Sunday nights, and I’d go to sleep with Guy Mitchell, Frankie Laine, Patti Page and Frank Sinatra.
Radio station oldies, 50’s to the Beatles, is what I grew up with.
I tuned an oldies station the other night and listened to songs that I’d never heard before – probably from the 80’s and 90’s, when I was listening to country. I didn’t recognize a single song in 30 minutes of listening.
Damn. I’m hearing a mouse in the ceiling. Where’s my cat?!
Yeah, you guys have to remember that “Oldies” and “Classic Rock” don’t mean times, they mean demographics. There’s a chronological overlap here.
Although I notice lately that when I turn on the local “Oldies” station they occasionally play a disco song or other 70s music. 10 years ago it was strictly motown, Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, Beatles, Elvis, and suchlike. But no Rolling Stones…they’re classic rock, not oldies, despite being contemporaries of the Beatles.
I’m with those who think it’s a moving window. I’d say I have three guidelines:
-
“Oldies” starts roughly 20 to 30 years ago, depending on what specific type of music you’re talking about.
-
Music by an artist still producing relevant music is never an “oldie.” Madonna’s early material cannot be “oldies” as long as Madonna is still producing relevant, interesting music. (Which I would argue she is and I don’t even like it.) If she starts producing shit that’s a parody of herself, like the Rolling Stones, then her old stuff will become oldies. U2 is in the same category; their songs from 25 years ago are exempt from oldie status because they still produce relevant music. Bizarrely enough, another example is Weird Al Yankovic.
-
The extent to which music sounds dated moves it into the “oldie” category faster. Brit Synth-pop music from 1983 is already decidedly oldie. REM’s “Murmur,” sounding far less dated, is not “oldie” yet, even though it’s from 1983.
Well there was:
The Crazy World of Arthur Brown
The Chambers Brothers
Billy Preston
Love with Arthur Lee
First off, I might as well admit this: The definitions I’m using are the ones that radio programmers seem to use, not my own (I use technological changes as a dividing line), and I may not always be right with these.
That said, the way I understand it:
Recordings made prior to 1940, for the most part, are not acknowledged to exist by radio broadcasters.
The popular music recorded from 1940 to 1955, and music recorded after that date but in a similar style, tended to be regarded as Music of Your Life or some such term.
More or less all popular music from 1955 to around 1966 in any sort of rock form (no matter how tenuous at times) is classified under the term of Oldies, as are the lighter forms of popular music (still in nominally post-1955 styles) from the following decade.
Classic Rock consists of the popular music post-1966 that is of a harder nature than the music played on Oldies stations, and which belongs to certain rock genres (no R&B, and many stations will not include developments in rock post-1975), as well as music of a similar nature that was not popular on AM radio but which was popular through albums and FM radio. The terminal date for this music ranges, but (in my experience) most broadcasters tend to stop at a date roughly twenty years before the current date.
Jammin’ Oldies tend to play music that was popular with black audiences from roughly 1965 to 1985 or thereabouts.
Most popular music not already mentioned from after 1980 tended to be grouped by decade by the radio programmers.
I got annoyed when my local oldies station played Harry Chapin, so I decided to craft a criterion for the end of the oldies period (the beginning, of course, is when Rock Around the Clock was released).
The oldies era was officially over when the boy dancers on American Bandstand were no longer required to wear ties.
I maintiain a conceit that “oldies” was always the term for this music, even while it was being written, recorded, and released. It comforts me.
Same here.
See if you can pick up WMTR 1250. “Doo Wop Drive”, Fridays 7 - 10PM.
[OT]I didn’t know Arthur Brown was black.[/OT]
Anyway, as was mentioned earlier in Governor Quinn’s post, the definitions for what constitutes “classic rock” or “oldies” were pretty much set by radio programmers. As for Hendrix being the only black artist played on classic rock stations, I’ve heard Sly and the Family Stone (a racially mixed band with a black frontman) get some airplay on a few of these stations. Beyond that, I think the artist list is pretty white (and male with a few notable exceptions as Janis Joplin and the Pretenders). Oddly enough, the precursor to the classic rock format, album oriented rock, used to play Stevie Wonder, late 60’s and early 70’s Motown (e.g., Marvin Gaye during his “What’s Going On?” and the Temptations during their “Pappa Was a Rolling Stone” periods), Richie Havens, and Otis Redding but all those songs and artists got culled down around 1980 as programmers apparently felt the need to “whiten up” their playlists.
I guess I would consider anything pre 2000 to be an oldie. It’s certainly not in the same class of oldies as 1950s and 1960s music, but most 90s music sounds very dated compared with modern music, so if it’s not an oldie, I don’t know what else I would call it.
Not that there’s anything special about the year 2000 being the cutoff; I could probably say 2003 instead. But then again, I get nostalgic sometimes when I hear music from April 2007.
How humiliatin’!! Apparently I misspoke. I, of course, meant to say that he wore black. (You would think that would teach me not to make assumptions, but I am sure it will not.)
You can add Living Color (“Cult Of Personality”) to this list.
I pretty much agree with your analysis, however I thought black people music from 1965 to 1985 would be considered “old school” rap and R&B.
Alice The Goon, tell your kids they don’t know what they are talking about and that their music is gay.