“Oldies” on the radio meant late 40s and 50s

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CookieTX2022@reddit

The way I remember it- Oldies meant Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Everly Brothers, Little Richard Classic Rock- Pink Floyd, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix Janis Joplin, etc

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mem1003@reddit

I heard Pumped Up Kicks on KRTH (Los Angeles radio station) a few months ago. Whyyy?

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Minute-Nebula-7414@reddit

Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra era were considered golden “oldies” to me. Born 1980.

1960s were old but not oldies. 1960 were parents’ music. 1950s were grandparents’ music.

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kelee124@reddit

Just yesterday I heard a local classic rock station play foo fighters. Just direct me to nearest assisted living facility. 🙃

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Oldies were always 50s/60s to me, and classic rock was late 60s/70s. I was talking to my teenage son's dad recently about how to kids his age, songs from the 60s are as old as songs from the 1930s were to us.

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Themoosemingled@reddit

It’s birth of rock and roll. Rock around the clock and beyond.

It’s not just the time difference but the sea change of rock and roll. Anything before it sounds like Glen miller and the USO. THAT is the generation gap.

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Spamberguesa@reddit

Oi, classic rock. For me it was always late-60s/70s, too, and the first time I can say I legit felt old was the first time I heard a song that came out when I was in high school on the classic rock station.

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larryjrich@reddit

Yeah someone pointed out to me the other day that listening to 80s music today would be like listening to 40s music back in the 80s. As a kid I listened to some 50s and 60s stuff, but not 40s. Kids today probably think we are lame listening to 80s music.

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Rhianna83@reddit

Same. Big Band is considered 40s.

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Grammareyetwitch@reddit

Big band is quintessential 40s. You can't have 40s music without Glen Miller showing up. I actually like all that stuff, it's usually happy silly music and reminds me of either Christmas or Looney Tunes.

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Rhianna83@reddit

I love that, and same! My grandparents raised me and I had a really young mom so I got Big Band, Oldies, Classic Rock, and then my own exploration brought me grunge/alternative, rap/hip-hop & electronic. My aunt liked country so I also got 90s country.

My first fav artist before NKOTH was Elvis though! I still love him. My husband and I renewed our vows in Vegas 2 years ago with an Elvis impersonator.

I feel lucky that we all will basically know or had exposure to almost 100 years of music coming up in just a few short years.

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snoopmt1@reddit

Same.

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Potential_Being_7226@reddit

My local classic rock radio station plays Pearl Jam and I hate it. (I love Pearl Jam, I just hate that some people consider them ‘classic rock,’ which to me, is still 60s/70s as you mention.)

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VoodooChild963@reddit

I got pissed off in the early 2000s when the classic rock stations started playing Metallica. I have no problem with Metallica (well, I have no problem with their early stuff) but hearing it played along with Hendrix and The Who just reminded me of the old Sesame Street "One of these things is not like the other" song.

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NachoNachoDan@reddit

I still get pissed off because these same "Classic Rock" radio stations seem to have a real issue with a large portion of 90's bands based on what they pick and choose to play alongside Zepplin, Creedence, and The Doors.

Like it bothers the piss out of me that they'll happily play soft wimpy Green Day shit like "wake me up when september ends" or "I walk a lonely road" but won't go anywhere near "Basketcase". Or similarly they'll be all over some sappy late-game Chili Peppers like Californication but they're afraid to play anything from Blood Sugar Sex Magick besides Under the Bridge. Grow a fucking pair!

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PaulAspie@reddit

Yeah, I remember that one of the local sports teams was broadcast on the oldies station so I would listen to it with some frequency, & they'd advertise they played the music of the 50s, 60s, & 70s. There was another super oldies station that was more the big band era of 40s & 50s that my old school barber played in his shop.

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theresourcefulKman@reddit

Music in the ‘40s became old by the ‘50s though. Rock and Roll made sure of that

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Grammareyetwitch@reddit

Maybe for the kids. The old fogeys still loved their Nat King Cole and Dinah Shore.

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Haemwich@reddit

The 60s was the blend decade of oldies and classic rock from my childhood. Stones were rock, Dylan was oldies, Beatles were somehow both.

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Internal-Homework@reddit

Oldies 103.3 Boston was my favorite radio station as a kid, late 50s and 60s - music from when my parents were in High School/College. I haven't heard the music from my High School/College years called "oldies" yet...

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amindfulloffire@reddit

Same here. I'd listened to the oldies station since I was a kid, but gave up when the '80s creeped in.

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SlaynArsehole@reddit

gif

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redclover83@reddit

A little too much fucking perspective

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prairieaquaria@reddit

Thank you for the perfect gif

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UnwillingHummingbird@reddit

My mom's favorite radio station when I was a teenager was the local oldies station, which played exclusively 50s and 60s. At least where I lived, anything from the 40s would have been played on a jazz station.

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bulakenyo1980@reddit

Oldies FM radio when I was growing up was majority mid 50s early rock and roll, to late 60s-very early 70s rock, Motown and Folk music.

My parents were into that shit, and so was I. Up to this day.

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Procrasturbating@reddit

Damn, Metalica is elder oldies now.

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guitar_stonks@reddit

What gets me is these classic rock stations will play Wherever I May Roam or The Memory Remains, but won’t play Creeping Death or Damage Inc. even though they’re technically older.

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odin_the_wiggler@reddit

Luckily Saint Anger will never be played on the radio ever again and we all know why.

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Procrasturbating@reddit

That fuckin detuned snare that sounded like ass? Lack of solos?

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odin_the_wiggler@reddit

...that fucking snare

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geirmundtheshifty@reddit

Yeah, because he never gets respect

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Ok-Orchid-5646@reddit

Now it means 90s

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Winwookiee@reddit

The local oldies channel growing up was full of Motown music from the 60s.

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bassman314@reddit

Oldies will always be the R&B/early rock through the mid 60’s.

Classic Rock is where I find pain. Classic rock should be 60’s -70’s, with maybe some early 80’s, but apparently, I’m making a scene if I get annoyed when Nirvana and Pearl Jam are considered “Classic”….

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daddywookie@reddit

My kids are as far from Nirvana as I was from The Beatles.

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bassman314@reddit

gif

I'm just being obstinate.

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caryn1477@reddit

Yup, as a kid I remember my mom listening to the oldies station, which played popular '50s/60s. Now, classic rock is '80s and '90s and it's messing with my head.

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srstone71@reddit

I realized the other day that if I listened to ‘Hotel California’ on a classic rock station when I was a senior in high school (the 2001-02 school year) that’s the same as listening to a song from my senior year of high school on a classic rock station now.

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AltaBirdNerd@reddit

90's hip hop is the new "oldies".

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ltmikestone@reddit

I’ve been fascinated lately by what’s made the “oldies” station where I live. We have both “oldies” and “classic rock” stations.

On the oldies you’ll get Blind Melon, lots of Alains Morrisette. They also love third eye blind, occasional nirvana and outlast. Surprisingly I never hear Pearl Jam there which I thought was pretty universal of the era. I think it has a lot to Dow it’s whatever was Top 40 back then z

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RaccoonObjective5674@reddit

When I was a kid, the “oldies” station claimed to play 50’s, 60’s, 70’s…but I think most of it was 60’s music.

Some stations today will still say they play “80’s, 90’s, and today!” Apparently “today” is 24 years of music!

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Messijoes18@reddit

Yes this. Music from the 40s was like big band and the boogie woogie bugle boy

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RaccoonObjective5674@reddit

From Company B!

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MyNameCannotBeSpoken@reddit

Michael Jackson (solo) appears on my local oldies station.

And to be fair, if the artist is dead, they qualify as oldies.

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UptightSinclair@reddit

I hate to say it, but this is about how my brain defines “today” as well!

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rancid_oil@reddit

The other day = sometime in the last 15-20 years

Recently = the last 5-10 years

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OG_Antifa@reddit

Time compression is a bitch

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googleflont@reddit

“Back in the day” = I’m ignorant of most of history.

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greysonhackett@reddit

There's actually data to support this. Today's pop all sounds the same. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-music/pop-music-too-loud-and-all-sounds-the-same-official-idUSBRE86P0R820120726/

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SirkutBored@reddit

oddly enough the too loud part is not because of aging ears. artists are pushing the volume higher on the masters and pushing that limit of saturation. some fad that started shortly before auto-tune if I remember right.

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dejour@reddit

Yeah, I think early 70s was always included. But it was a particular style. Like Neil Diamond, Jim Croce. Songs like Lean on Me or Brandy you’re a fine girl.

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BigPoppaStrahd@reddit

I’ve heard “90’s, 2000’s, and today.” Just doesn’t roll off the tongue as nicely

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SnooConfections6085@reddit

Oldies used to and still does typically mean pop music from the era prior to the Beatles "Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band" album, which changed music even more profoundly then "Nevermind".

Some music released after gets grouped with the oldies, but for the most part that's where classic rock begins. Bands and distributors started releasing rock albums. Soon thereafter was Woodstock.

I tend to think classic rock ends at "Nevermind", which is the start of the Alt rock era. There are a few things from the classic rock era that cross over (Violent Femmes, REM and the Cure have a more alt rock sound), and a few bands that kept playing classic rock (Aerosmith). Some of the big early alt rock bands are still kickin releasing new music (Green Day, Weezer).

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SweetCosmicPope@reddit

When I was a kid oldies were 50s and 60s and very dependent on what kind of music.

So like our oldies station played a lot of The Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Topps, The Four Seasons, Elvis Presley, you get the deal. They even played early Beatles.

Now classic rock was all 60s and 70s and played later Beatles, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Pink Floyd and the like. By the time I was in high school, the classic rock stations were playing 80s hair metal and stuff too.

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FreezingRobot@reddit

Makes me think about how the lineup on SiriusXM used to be: Channel 4 was 40s music, Channel 5 was 50s, etc all the way up to channel 10 being 00s. Then a few years ago they changed it to be Channel 7 through 10. Apparently the 40s/50s/60s are way up in the triple digit channel range now. Guess it goes to show how their subscriber base is changing.

Meanwhile the 90s and Lithium stations have a bunch of "REMEMBER WHEN MUSIC WAS GOOD" self-advertisements between the songs, so I guess they're oldies stations now.

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Few_Improvement_6357@reddit

I looked up some 40s music and i didn't recognize anything outside of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, You Only Hurt the One You Love and Christmas music. But when I checked what music was in the 50s, I was like yup, yup, yup. I knew them all, lol.

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SplendidPunkinButter@reddit

Shame, because 30s and 40s music is awesome. I wish more people knew ir

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tessathemurdervilles@reddit

Thank you swing revival in the 90s- I still love and listen to old big band and jazz even if I think the dancing part is pretty dorky these days…

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TwoBirdsEnter@reddit

Me with my Fats Waller album on repeat

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Muderous_Teapot548@reddit

Oldies station here dropped "Oldies" from the title and started playing 90s in 2019. My jaw dropped when I heard NSYNC for the first time.

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MartialBob@reddit

This is actually my gripe with the rock stations in my area. Outside of a smattering of new music the song rotation hasn't changed significantly since I was 20. I'm 42. By every measurable standard this music is now oldies. Sure, it's sucks getting old but that's inevitable. There is a reason that 90% of the music in my playlist is called "Dad Rock" by the kids these days.

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OnEwEiRdBeArD@reddit

I’ll never forget the day when I first heard Metallica on the classic rock station.

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Ok_Egg_471@reddit

Yep. And now Nirvana and Pearl Jam are being played on Classic Rock stations and I die a little more each time I hear them on those stations!!

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CSWorldChamp@reddit

It’s wild to me that radio stations are still playing the “greatest hits of the 80’s, 90’s, and today” here in 2024.

Pretty good indicator to me that our generation is the last that listens to radio.

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googleflont@reddit

Now the oldies are a bunch of crap from the 2000’s I never even listened to.

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boulevardofdef@reddit

I actually don't remember "oldies" ever meaning '40s, I remember it meaning '50s and '60s through the early Beatles, including late-'60s stuff that wasn't influenced by the later Beatles.

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highcross1983@reddit

To hear Alice in Chains on oldies is such a mind warp for me. When we were kids Frankie Vallie was on oldies

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Sumeriandawn@reddit

K-Earth 101(oldies station, Los Angeles)- REM, Men at Work, Sheryl Crow

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Separate-Succotash11@reddit

So so true. I hated K-Earth as a child because it was the station of old person’s music.

Now I like it because it’s the music of MY youth. 80’s/90’s.

Come to think of it, stations playing 50’s music have largely disappeared from FM haven’t they? Are they on AM only?

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MexicanVanilla22@reddit

So tragic. 😢

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nwokie619@reddit

If it's not 50's or 60's and some 70's I refuse to acknowledge it exists. When I want to annoy my kids (their over 35) I play best of Roger Miller.

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sauvandrew@reddit

Yeah, oldies was beach boys, etc.

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Blathithor@reddit

Yep. Metallica is legitimately "oldies" now.

It went from Mr Sandman, from way back , to Enter Sandman

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Ornery-Sky1411@reddit

Oldies for me meant 50s-late 60s. Now its all over the place

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RetroGamer9@reddit

It was depressing to realize the radio station I listen to for songs from high school was referred to as the oldies station when I was in high school.

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Edge_USMVMC@reddit

Pulled up on some kids blasting California Love by Tupac. I started singing along with these youngsters at a red light and it hit me. This song is as old to them as the Rolling Stone’s were to me….

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Moist_Rule9623@reddit

I’m afraid to listen to an “oldies” radio station at this point; I’m afraid I’m gonna hear like Talking Heads and The Pretenders on there now, because that’s roughly the correct time frame. Listening to that is about the temporal equivalent of listening to Benny Goodman or Glenn Miller in 1980

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dejour@reddit

Definitely one near me that is 80s with some 70s thrown in

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RaspberryVespa@reddit

You will hear Foo Fighters on the oldie station now. 😓

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Aggressive-Pilot6781@reddit

50s and early 60s

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Okaynowwatt@reddit

Oldies always meant 50s and 60s, classic rock was 70s. Of course now Nirvana and Soundgarden are classic rock.

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jjmawaken@reddit

They definitely play 80s and 90s music on the oldies station near me. It makes me sad to hear Journey and Aerosmith and stuff on there.

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rodw@reddit

"the greatest hits from the 80s, 90s and today" where "today" is an ever expanding period that already stretches 25 years. Fukuyama's "end of history" is alive and well in radio programming

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Okra_Tomatoes@reddit

That line is a warning that this is all the worst music that you hated then and you’ll still hate now.

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So-Called_Lunatic@reddit

That would be classic hits format, not oldies.

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jjmawaken@reddit

It was the station that always used to play 50's and 60's music

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So-Called_Lunatic@reddit

A lot of those stations converted to classic hits after the oldies format became passe.

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RaspberryVespa@reddit

I’m already hearing early 2000s music on our local oldies station. 😒

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guitar_stonks@reddit

I heard Korn on the classic rock station a few weeks ago and it broke me a bit.

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NoAnnual3259@reddit

🎵Out on the road today, I saw a Deftones sticker on a Cadillac

A little voice inside my head said “Don’t look back, you can never look back”🎵

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hbi2k@reddit

Grateful Dead (1965) -> Black Flag (1976) -> Deftones (1988)

Yeah, that would probably be the next logical update to the line.

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The42ndHitchHiker@reddit

I was flipping through stations recently and stumbled across a station playing mellow '90s alt rock, and it made me happy.

They cut to break and I recognized the call letters as belonging to the oldies station, and it made me sad.

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MaineHippo83@reddit

No they are not they are alternative still.

We may have called certain things oldies and classic rock based on when they were made to some degree as in we made the names based on age but they were still a certain genre, a certain style of music.

We don't just add other music of different genres to that bucket because they are now old

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Okaynowwatt@reddit

Classic rock isn’t a musical genre. It’s a time. And that time is 30 years from whenever it was released. Led Zeppelin was not classic rock when it was released, nor was it so in 85., it was just rock. Grunge was in fact rock, and now it is classic rock, or grunge classic rock. If you listen to a classic rock radio station, now they play Nirvana and Soundgarden. And no they were never “alternative”, grunge. Alternative was Smashing Pumpkins etc.

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AgentWD409@reddit

Everything about this comment is hilariously wrong.

Classic rock refers to a particular era of rock music, generally the late '60s through the late '70s (maybe the early '80s). Bands don't just magically become "classic rock" because they've been around for 30 years or whatever. That's nonsense. Led Zeppelin, Queen, Aerosmith, Elton John, Lynyrd Skynyrd, etc. will always be classic rock, because they come from the most classic era of rock music. Period. Any "classic rock" station that plays Nirvana or Pearl Jam is just trying to bank on the nostalgia of '90s kids.

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NoAnnual3259@reddit

Yeah this is true, juts like we don’t call The Clash or Ramones classic rock despite being over 45 years ago, they’re punk and Talking Heads and Devo will always be new wave, Motley Crue and Poison will always be hair metal and 80s Metallica and Slayer will always be thrash metal.

Classic rock to me starts around the mid-60s with The Beatles discovering drugs and focusing on albums rather than singles and Dylan going electric with Like A Rolling Stone and includes everything through the late 60s psychedelic era into 70s arena rock, early hard rock/metal and mainstream prog rock and basically ends with Pink Floyd’s The Wall. The classic rock radio format has since expanded to 80s hard rock and 90s grunge and you don’t hear as much from earlier than the late 60s now, but still classic rock is a specific era in rock with a specific set of artists.

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Prestigious_Wall5866@reddit

Lol highly subjective.

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MaineHippo83@reddit

No, my earlier list wasn’t fully comprehensive. Here’s an expanded list of **alternative rock sub-genres**:

**Indie Rock**

**Grunge**

**Post-Punk Revival**

**Britpop**

**Shoegaze**

**Noise Rock**

**Psychedelic Rock**

**Gothic Rock**

**Math Rock** – Complex rhythms and atypical song structures.

**Emo/Alternative Emo** – Emotionally intense themes (e.g., early Jimmy Eat World).

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skornd713@reddit

gif

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krissym99@reddit

I was surfing the stations in my car recently and stopped at a station playing Green Day. Dionne Warwick came on next and I thought that was kinda weird...then a DJ came on and said it was the oldies station. 😭

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tiburon357@reddit

Younger millennial but I genuinely thought oldies was 80s and anything older.

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Traditional_Entry183@reddit

I remember being a kid, and my dad had a friend who was about ten years older than he was - so born in the early 40s. When we would visit his house, he'd play music from the 50s and early 60s that he called "real oldies", and said that my dad's music from the late 60s and 70s was new rock.

Today, i don't know what to call what, given that we have music from seven decades available at all times, so the world of music for my kids is just so drastically different than when I was their age in the 80s.

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Echterspieler@reddit

Oldies were definitely 50s and 60s in the 80s. I remember heating a lot of Frankie valley and Beatles on an oldies station in 1984 when I was first exploring radio

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ohiogenius@reddit

40s? No. 50s and 60s yes.

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BearCat1478@reddit

Just give it up lol. We are the oldies now 😉

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SalukiKnightX@reddit

Messed part for me was that “Dusties” meant R&B from the 60’s and 70’s in the late 80’s/early 90’s

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theresourcefulKman@reddit

I was born in 1984 I don’t think I ever heard a song from the 40s on the radio

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destenlee@reddit

I realized I was old when our oldies station played green day and I thought I was on the pop station. My kids laughed at me.

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LazarusMundi4242@reddit

gif

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ego_tripped@reddit

My local radio stations no longer say "oldies"...Instead they market themselves as "80s, 90s or whatever".

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LetGo_n_LetDarwin@reddit

I had to go listen to the oldies station in my area because it has been a long time…when I was a kid I would listen to the oldies with my Nana and she would be silly and dance around the kitchen. I remember it being mostly 50’s music.

I heard:
Marvin Gaye- Your Precious Love
Rod Stewart-Maggie May
David Ruffin-My Whole World Ended
Wayne Fontana-The Game of Love
The chords- Sh-boom
Tommy Roe-Sheila

So mostly late 60’s, early 70’s. In all fairness, even though it doesn’t feel like it to us, those songs are 50 and 60 something years old 😳 Thankfully no 80’s music…yet.

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tenehemia@reddit

I listened to the oldies station pretty much exclusively when I was a kid and it was mostly 60s stuff with a bit of late 50s rock and roll. My favorite song was These Boots Are Made for Walking, which released in 1966.

But when I think 40s music I think big band and swing, which wasn't ever on the oldies station.

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RaspberryVespa@reddit

I just heard P!nk on my local oldies station. 😢 It ain’t right.

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So-Called_Lunatic@reddit

Oldies is mid 50's till about the time the Beatles started getting weird. I've never heard a 40's song that I would consider Oldies.

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CheesyRomantic@reddit

Yeah.. we didn’t have a station dedicated to the oldies, but we had 1 station that played the oldies during lunch. It was 50s/60s. The Temptations, The Beach Boys, The Supremes and Roberta Flack etc…. M

I miss that.

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WishieWashie12@reddit

One of the stations I listen to plays what they call " the next generation of classic rock" nirvana, pearl jam, sound garden, etc.

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Writeforwhiskey@reddit

Growing up on Black radio stations we had The Dusties, which was mainly 70s and 80s funk/soul but also doo wap/Motown.

The station in Chicago was V103 and their jingle was "V103 the best variety of hits and dusties" so you could get Jodeci one minute and Commodors the next. Herb Kent, the DJ, would have battles, and he'd play 5 songs from 2 different artists (think Jackie Wilson vs Sam Cook). It was a staple on Sunday afternoons drives.

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remoteworker9@reddit

40s? No. Even my patents didn’t listen to that. Oldies were 50s/60s.

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longganisafriedrice@reddit

There was not a lot of 40s music being played anywhere except on a few stations or specific programs. Even then a lot of the times the music was primarily from the 50 and 60s even if it was by artists from the 30s-40s

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OhFuuuuuuuuuuuudge@reddit

What did you want? Some bard playing a lute?

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odin_the_wiggler@reddit

/r/bardcore deserves a mention because it's hilarious

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lesterbottomley@reddit

In the 80s oldies radio was from the 60s. Sometimes veering into the 50s.

Scary to think that's the equivalent of the 00s now.

I listened to stuff from the 40s (old blues) but you had to search that out yourself.

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rangeghost@reddit

My local station tended to include 60s as well. You'd definitely hear early Beatles and Stones alongside the Everly Brothers and Elvis. By the time it hit 2010, they played a TON of 70s as well.

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JFiveIsAlive@reddit

I think you mean mid to late '50s and later. I can guarantee you weren't listening to '40s and early '50s stuff on oldies radio.

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GoBigRed07@reddit (OP)

I definitely remember Hank Williams on the radio, who certainly didn’t release any new music after 1953!

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FlatBot@reddit

When I think “oldies “, I think “earth angel“ (1954). Hank Williams is old country music. You might hear that on a country station.

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MaineHippo83@reddit

Yes and you were listening to him on country radio not oldies, oldies most definitely did not include country.

It wasn't about how old it was it was a specific genre of music

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Moist_Rule9623@reddit

It would have been very difficult for him to do so lol

And I myself listen to a late night radio show every Saturday that plays Hank Williams era country/western

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JFiveIsAlive@reddit

Very interesting. What station was this?

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GoBigRed07@reddit (OP)

No clue at this point which station this would’ve been.

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nvmls@reddit

Probably WCBS AM

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JFiveIsAlive@reddit

I don't believe WCBS AM was ever an oldies station.

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Own_Lengthiness_7466@reddit

My parents definitely preferred 40’s/50’s and there was a really old school station they insisted on listening to. I hated it.

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sticky_wicket@reddit

Nope. My dad was into that and I have real specific memories of listening to “the GI Jive” and other wartime stuff. Bob Hope, Bing Crosby etc. AM oldies for WWII vet generation was definitely a thing.

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ryhoyarbie@reddit

Ah yes Benny Goodman. I remember him well. And Glenn Miller was a swell cat. He put me in the mood.

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gorilla-ointment@reddit

This sounds like Abe Simpson in my head, and it’s great.

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AgentWD409@reddit

There was no doo-wop or rock n' roll in the '40s. You must be thinking of the mid '50s to mid '60s, which was the heyday of groups/artists like Dion & the Belmonts, the Four Seasons, the Drifters, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, the Supremes, the Crystals, the Temptations, etc. Then later you had British invasion bands like the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, the Kinks, the Dave Clark Five, etc.

In the '40s it was still mostly big band, jazz, ragtime, swing, and old-school cowboy music.

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Nadathug@reddit

Speaking of what used to be considered “oldies”, does anyone else remember hearing oldies mega mixes like this? There was a couple different ones and I remember hearing them at weddings or big house parties. All the grandparents would lose their goddamn minds and tear up the dance floor.

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darbyboi22@reddit

Still does

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DoctorQuarex@reddit

The real problem is that this radio format was invented when those eras were considered oldies--thus unlike classic rock and 80s and alternative, et cetera, they never got their own permanent radio stations, rather the era "oldies" refers to (obviously) keeps tracking ~25 years behind the present

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DisconcerteDinOC@reddit

I was watching From there other night and there was a jukebox on the diner table. I told my daughter oh those are cute. She says yeah you probably had them everywhere like B&W tv. I said damn i was born in the late 70s. I told her the dinosaurs were gone by the time I was born and I don't know King Tut either. Damn kids.

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jjmawaken@reddit

But we were born in the 1900's, gasp*

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DisconcerteDinOC@reddit

Yes, according to the kids born after 2000 lol

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nyghtowll@reddit

It's weird though because the same adult contemporary, classic rock, and oldies stations exist and often play the same music from when I was a kid in the 90's. The only difference is the country stations lean more into bro country.

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DisconcerteDinOC@reddit

Oh and btw, i love Oldies, Motown especially.

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RetroSchat@reddit

Hmm for me it was 50s and 60s- songs from my parents childhood and youth. Classic rock was mostly late 60s and 70s. My dad went to Woodstock so classic rock was a mainstay in my house. my mom was very into the synchronized American bandstand type dances - so my sibling and I could do wop like the best of them. ( Not coincidentally I loved Grease the movie as a kid lol)

It’s crazy turning on the radio and hearing the oldies station play Tupac…

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No_Solution_2864@reddit

Oldies: 50s-1965

This gets complicated. The Kinks aren’t oldies, but Lou Christy is, even if his oldies song came out after some of The Kink’s classic rock songs

Classic Rock: Early 60s(Kinks, The Who etc)-1991(Genesis’ I Can’t Dance)

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Happycat5300@reddit

I noticed around 2 years ago that the classic rock/oldies station in the area where I grew up had become mainly 90s music. Took a lil bit of acceptance work but ended up liking the throwbacks. Last month it was sold to some right-wing talk radio station, and I still haven't processed what that means.

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lemystereduchipot@reddit

I did a double take a few months back when the radio voice said "oldies from the 70s, 80s, and the 90s!"

When my brain processed what he was saying, I shed a tear

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Friendly-Airport-316@reddit

My childhood local oldies station recently came back! They sometimes play some classic rock stuff, but more often it's 40s-60s, along with old timey commercials and stuff. I think they're often playing archive recordings, but there's definitely live volunteer djs sometimes, as well as older syndicated shows. I love KISN radio!

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🎶The dogs kids love to bite!🎶

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PhotographStrict9964@reddit

I remember it being 50s and 60s. I got into some 40s stuff though, especially Sinatra.