April brought a number of format changes and the pattern and explanation is clear. If you were a teen or young adult in the late 1960s or 1970s, you’re pushing 60, the age beyond which advertisers don’t care about you. You are done with raising children, you probably aren’t changing jobs or buying your first house and the related stuff, you’ve probably lost interest in attending grateful dead and Mick Jagger concerts. You’re more interested in your 401(k) and worrying about winding up in a nursing home.
Pre-Beatles music (Oldies) is solidly in the territory of its fans dying off every day. Classic Rock is in the on deck circle. While there will always be people who like “old music”, the bulk of people remember and serk out the music of the time they went from child to adult – so Elton John and Pink Floyd and Kiss give way to Lady Gaga and Green Day. Time Marches on.
I knew I was ‘over the hill’ when my local ‘oldies’ station began playing The Pretenders, Blondie, Pat Benatar and other music from the late 70’s and early 80’s. The same station played Frank Sinatra, Herb Alpert, Henry Mancini, Dean Martin to my parents generation when I was a kid. Eventually they moved to Elvis/50’s then Beatles/Motown era. Next came ‘easy listening’ of James Taylor/Carly Simon 70’s and then they re-lived the nightmare of Disco for a few years until they reached ‘my era’. Hard to believe that in another 10 years (if they are still in business) they will be playing Kurt Cobain and Nirvana!
Odd isn’t it? I can remember 20 years ago when some teenager asked me who the Beatles were. Now it would be amazing if a teen could spell “Beatles” much less know who they were.
Kurt Cobain? Nirvana? Didn’t they figure out that Cobain shot himself because he couldn’t stand “grunge” music?