Just heard The Smashing Pumpkins on the local oldies station.

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Makes sense.

When I was young and my parents were in their early 40s, it seemed the "oldies station" was playing music they loved when they were kids. --not that there really was an oldies station; there were like 8 stations (if you had good reception) and you better like it. But there were oldies programmes for a few hours a week

Smashing Pumpkins were one of the hot young(ish) indie bands when I started university in 1993. Siamese Dream had just released and Gish was already 2 years old.

I'm now 42.
 
If the 90s are considered oldies, what the hell do they call music from the 50s and 60s now?

"You're listening to K-A-F-H, Ancient Fucking History."
 
What kills me the most is seeing trendy versions of Nirvana t-shirts for sale in fashion boutiques. Christ that makes me feel old.
 
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Just add some grey in the temple.

I suppose that would be more honest...
 
I need to find a real oldies station. I want that 50s and 60s shit. I used to have a station that played a lot of Motown and stuff which was nice but recently I've felt like they switched to more traditional classics of the 70s and 80s that every station under the sun plays.
 
If the 90s are considered oldies, what the hell do they call music from the 50s and 60s now?

"You're listening to K-A-F-H, Ancient Fucking History."

Just think about folk music from the Great Depression! Or jazz from the Harlem Renaissance!

Now they occupy the same space as Beethoven, Brahms, and Mozart.
 
I need to find a real oldies station. I want that 50s and 60s shit. I used to have a station that played a lot of Motown and stuff which was nice but recently I've felt like they switched to more traditional classics of the 70s and 80s that every station under the sun plays.

I had my dad over the other night (born 1946, so he's a real 50s, 60s music kid). Cracked open the scotch and looked up Johnny Kidd and The Pirates on Spotify and set it to "radio mode" and had one hell of a good couple hours listening to some truly great records, many of which i remember rinsing the hell out of on his old 7" vinyls when I was about 10.
 
I need to find a real oldies station. I want that 50s and 60s shit. I used to have a station that played a lot of Motown and stuff which was nice but recently I've felt like they switched to more traditional classics of the 70s and 80s that every station under the sun plays.

I blame advances in production.
 
Zeppelin was "classic rock" by the early/mid-90s, and at that point the bulk of their music was about 20 years old. Stuff that came out in the early/mid-90's (pretty much all of grunge, among other stuff) is that old or older now. It's not that weird when you think about it.
 
Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana being on my (former oldies, now classic rock) station has been happening for years now.

It was actually pretty interesting that I grew up and could tell as they slowly started phasing 50s/early 60s stuff out of the airtime and then inched up the decades every few years.
 
Zeppelin was "classic rock" by the early/mid-90s, and at that point the bulk of their music was about 20 years old. Stuff that came out in the early/mid-90's (pretty much all of grunge, among other stuff) is that old or older now. It's not that weird when you think about it.
The difference is that rock lost its place as the dominant form of music in the late 90s/easily 2000s.

There's a continuum from Chuck Berry/Beatles/Sabbath/Zepplin/Punk/80s cock rock/Seattle alternative...

...then rock petered out with Nu Metal/middle of the road stuff like Nickelback, and rap/R&B took over as the main 'hard' (not straight pop) forms of popular music. While there were some revivals after that, like the 'New Rock Revolution' (Strokes/White Stripes), they were there as a niche genre. More recent 'big' bands I feel have just folded into pop, they're just a guitar flavoured variation.

As such, there's a gap - the mid 90s is the last time rock had a large influence on popular or even alternative culture. Bands from then are the last ones to have such a broad cultural impact, so it seems odd to call them 'classics'.
 
Are you sure its an "oldies" station? Some of the classic rock stations around here have sort of morphed into just being rock oriented, meaning that things like 90s Pumpkins/Metallica/Nirvana/Alice in Chains are now played alongside your usual 70s/80s "classic rock" artists

Oldies as a genre to my ear is usually 50s and 60s music, with some lighter 70s fare thrown in.

Billy Corgan is our Ted Nugent so it works out

No lies detected.
 
I had "that" moment a few years ago when Faith No More reformed in 2009 and some of the guys at work had never heard of them.
 
The one that got me was hearing No Doubt's "Just a Girl" on an "oldies" station a week or so ago. Right now the same "oldies" station is playing The Cars.

Traditional oldies from the 50s and 60s doesn't exist on the radio anymore. Elvis is one of the biggest names in rock history, but when was the last time you heard a song of his on the radio?
 
The one that got me was hearing No Doubt's "Just a Girl" on an "oldies" station a week or so ago. Right now the same "oldies" station is playing The Cars.

Traditional oldies from the 50s and 60s doesn't exist on the radio anymore. Elvis is one of the biggest names in rock history, but when was the last time you heard a song of his on the radio?

Sometimes they play his Christmas songs around Christmastime. That's the only Elvis I can think of on the radio these days.
 
They used to be my favorite band of all. And this is the first year I have also felt old, not because of this news, so it feels fitting. Mid 30s and feelin it.
 
One measuring stick that I've used is the Back to the Future ending scene where Marty plays Jonny B Goode. Before he starts playing he calls it an oldie. Dude is from 1985 and the song was released in 1958. 27 years difference.

So by that anything released from 1990 and earlier is considered in oldie in my book.
 
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