Where were you when you first heard
Posted by gonzo-is-sexy@reddit | GenX | View on Reddit | 69 comments
Pearl Jam/Soundgarden/The Cure etc on the oldies station. I was driving when I heard Jeremy. It actually hurt. I’m 53 but it still feels like high school was not that long ago
anyoutlookuser@reddit
Mostly at work but my brush with fame was working with Pearl Jam’s drummers dad. Dave Abruzzezze was from my little town and his dad was one of my coworkers.
FictionForest@reddit
I frequently hear “pictures of you” in my local grocery store
18ekko@reddit
My grocery store is all 80s all the time. I’ll walk around for 15 min when I’m just there for cereal.
Fair-Wishbone-1190@reddit
At a house party. I was pissed everyone liked this new grunge sound and we're dropping outta the 80s glam metal scene. I just couldn't understand.
kost1035@reddit
There is an oldies station in my town that 20 years ago played 60s music and now 20 years later they play 80s music
eyeused2b@reddit
Where I grew up, in the 80s, the oldies station played 60s and 70s. If they did that now, it would be 90s and 00s.
GogglesPisano@reddit
I was in a local shop over the weekend and they were playing Pearl Jam. I complimented the (20-something) clerk on the music and she said, “Yeah, that’s my ‘90s Oldies channel.” I died a little inside.
74chuckb@reddit
First heard Pixies and Nirvana on 120 Minutes and around that time, Pixies were breaking up (first time). I really got into them throughout the 90s and was stoked when they reunited in the 2000s. First time heard Pearl Jam on my cassette stereo and tried to record the song.
Caloso89@reddit
I heard the Pixies on the PA at Raleys. Well, that's something.
MessageOk2410@reddit
Just this morning I thought about how I felt old when Pearl Jam came out. I was 20.
Honest-Western1042@reddit
I had to wait to check out at the grocery store until the Def Leppard song was over
Dense_Surround3071@reddit
I heard STP playing on the Radio at Moe's and Nirvana playing overhead on the corporate approved radio at Best Buy. 😮💨
capsteve@reddit
I heard Baba O’Reilly playing during a Whopper commercial and Tell Me Something Good during a Honeynut Cheerio commercial. Oh boy
hyst0rica1_29@reddit
Lol. We’ve had this one local station as the “oldies” station since the 90s. When I was, ironically, in an antique store & heard “Friday I’m in Love” playing over the PA, followed by canned announcer say the oldies station’s call letters, I wanted to yell “NOOOOOOOO!!” 😭
It turned out the station’s format had changed, a while back, to “the best of yesterday AND today!!”
Still, to hear The Cure on what had, for 20+ years been the “oldies” station… 😬
Resident_Zebra933@reddit
In 2024 we were on a road trip driving through southern Wisconsin, I was scrolling through the local FM radio stations and a station claiming to be "Big Oldies" came up. West End Girls by The Pet Shop Boys was playing. At first I thought, "What kind of idiot...", then it dawned on me.
IcebergSlimFast@reddit
Crazy to think that song is as old as 40s Big Band music was when I was in HS in the late 80s.
yardkat1971@reddit
A few years ago I heard PJ's Black in the grocery store and I just was gobsmacked.
RetiredPoPo10-8@reddit
"Gobsmacked"...a word that says so much with just 2 syllables.
IcebergSlimFast@reddit
It says even more when you pronounce it with three syllables.
johntwoods@reddit
I remember hearingJeremy as well.
I was at home, drawing pictures.
gonzo-is-sexy@reddit (OP)
Drawing mountain tops?
johntwoods@reddit
Yeah, totally. You know the drill... Draw myself on top, picture of a sun (lemon-yellow... As always)
IcebergSlimFast@reddit
Arms up, v-shaped of course.
johntwoods@reddit
Naturally.
egret_society@reddit
Omg decades ago. I remember when I heard evenflow on the classic rock station back around 2005 or so. And the cure was played on an 80s station even earlier, like 2000-2001.
IcebergSlimFast@reddit
I mean, The Cure should be played on an 80s station, right?
itsshakespeare@reddit
Smells like teen spirit as background music in Costa was deeply upsetting
Carrollz@reddit
I don't know but I remember when being flabbergasted that songs that came out in my lifetime were on the oldies station whomever was with me pointed out that at that moment those songs were released longer ago than the "oldies" songs I was listening to on the oldies station had been when I was a kid and that completely threw off my whole sense of reality to the point that I competely forget all other details of the situation except that I simultaneously realized I've been on this earth for such a long time and yet that time is so brief.
solitaryjim@reddit
It doesn't hurt as bad as about 15 years ago when I overheard someone in the store describing a "really old song" that turned out to be Yellow by Coldplay.
Sensitive_Diamond328@reddit
My best friend got Pearl Jam Ten early somehow and I have the most vivid memory of laying on the ground on his lanai listening to it from beginning to end, never heard anything like it.
Carrollz@reddit
I first heard Alive before Ten came out on a random artist compilation sampler cassette... I lost that tape when I moved in June of 1991 and since conflated whatever other songs were on it with other collections so I've never been able to figure out what that was.
correct_use_of_soap@reddit
I heard one of my favorite New Wave bands at Home Depot yesterday (granted, it was from their later FM friendly era, but it still hurt).
ZweitenMal@reddit
Ooh which one?
correct_use_of_soap@reddit
Icehouse aka Flowers, "Electric Blue" I was really into their first album. Not so much into their mullet era.
ZweitenMal@reddit
I think that’s the only song of theirs I know. I didn’t consider them New Wave though.
JfPickups@reddit
High School was both Not that long ago AND a F-ing long time ago.
This year I'm the age my Mom was when she died in the early 90s... that has been playing some minor tricks on me. It has been so many year that is isn't a huge deal r/vaguelyominous
raisinghellions@reddit
It was about 2010, I was driving my kids somewhere and both Nirvana and RHCP were played on the classic rock station 😭
correct_use_of_soap@reddit
If I hear the Wipers at Walmart then I'll know it's end times.
Bob_12_Pack@reddit
My 19-yo son was helping me with a deck project one day recently and he had his bluetooth speaker playing one of his playlists. He likes a variety of music but mostly recent stuff. It was kinda cool how his playlist would swing from trap music to RHCP or Pearl Jam, even some Metallica and Journey in the mix.
ZweitenMal@reddit
My grocery store’s playlist is basically first wave. I love it.
dual4mat@reddit
I randomly changed the radio to BBC Radio 2 around 15 years ago and they were playing KLF
I knew from that moment that I had arrived at the next part of my life.
IcebergSlimFast@reddit
Now you too are Justified and Ancient.
dual4mat@reddit
It was that track. RIP Tammy
vajrasana@reddit
At least you knew that they were gonna rock you!
JenniferJuniper6@reddit
Doctor’s office. They were playing my entire senior year of high school.
ceeece@reddit
My brother's cassette tape (Pearl Jam)
imdugud777@reddit
Shopping.
Singular_Plurality@reddit
I generally just listen to 80s80s (stream from the app to CarPlay). Bought a car a year ago and still have not programmed the radio, so couldn’t even tell you what’s playing on the oldies station…
SouffleStitches@reddit
I was at an 8th grade dance in the Midwest. I have a vivid memory of being in the gym hallway hearing Alive for the first time. I stopped a kid, Pete, and was incredulous when I asked "who is this?!" because it was so different from the Vanilla Ice/MC Hammer/Boyz2Men world we had been living in. When he said Pearl Jam, I remember thinking it was a pretty weird name. By the next fall everything was different.
PresentTense21@reddit
Around 2004 was the first time I heard AIC sandwiched between Zeppelin and AC/DC on the local classic rock station. Heard a Soundgarden song the next day. Realized I was close to 30.
The_Existentialist@reddit
I don't remember a specific place for a specific song, but I do remember listening to the dead kennedys on a Walkman in the back of my parents car. The music and the lyrics gripped me as a child.
While DK didn't stick as a top fave over time (probably true for just people id say)... They activated a switch in my brain that turned me on to punk, reading all lyrics and considering them deeply, and paying attention to things in society that as a child, I'd not previously given thought to.
ru_k1nd@reddit
I was in a hotel elevator in San Diego back in 2018 and it was playing Morrissey’s “Everyday is Like Sunday”
Separate-Succotash11@reddit
They played “Just Can’t Get Enough”by Depeche Mode in a Vegas casino.
Our time has come!
jfellrath@reddit
They didn't call it the "oldies" station, but it pretty much is. It's "greatest hits of the 70s, 80s, and 90s." That was within the last five years,
What hit me hardest was hearing Weezer as grocery store music.
shan68ok01@reddit
I could not tell you the song, but I was on a turnpike going to the city some year in the late 90s early 2000s and one of my favorite from high school was on the classic rock station. I graduated in 86.
Aromatic_Location@reddit
I emailed the classic rock station and told them that I was not classic rock age and to stop playing sound garden and other music from when I was in highschool. Classic rock is from the 60s and 70s They read the letter on the air and laughed at me 😞
correct_use_of_soap@reddit
they also laughed that you emailed them and it wasn't a social media dm.
icedyoga@reddit
Ouch! I have yet to hear SG in grocery, and agree that classic rock is 60s and 70s. Call it grunge not classic!
Ok-Staff-62@reddit
I hate when 'my music' is played on an 'oldies' radio station ... feels weird.
Atomic_Gumbo@reddit
I heard Black Hole Sun in a grocery store and at first I was like ‘finally they recognize us’ and then it hit me that they just want us to feel that way while they take my money for overpriced eggs and shitty produce.
usury87@reddit
I heard Dr Feelgood on the classic rock station sometime around 2005. That was an ouch
LockieBalboa@reddit
Probably the grocery store.
Trick-Mechanic8986@reddit
I got old the instant I heard Death Angel in a Hardee's commercial...
Rich_Ad6234@reddit
Are there still radio stations?
thisgenXer@reddit
It was sometime in thr mid 2010s when Metallica became a staple on my local classic rock station.
Jumpy_Employment_371@reddit
It's all grocery store music now. Literally heard The Cure in Whole Foods last week.
Pretend_Passenger586@reddit
THIS! I work a weekend job at Walmart and almost all they play is entirely Gen X music. They always say they play a little of everything but they don’t really. It’s 90% Gen X stuff from 80’s and early 90’s on repeat. The other 10% is millennial era boy bands and maybe a tiny bit of early Gen Z hip hop.
OldManGamer78@reddit
I’m not sure if there is a rule for classic rock radio stations where a song has to be X number of years old before they can play it, but for the station in my city it seems to be about 20 years. I recall them playing “Come As You Are” back in the early 2010s.
Bokononfoma@reddit
We're past classic rock, And have been relegated to the oldies station? I thought that was reserved for motown.