What constitutes an "oldie?"

[Hobgoblin]

So what exactly is "old" music? My parents listened to music from the 50's and early 60's when I was a kid in the 90s. So to me, music from the 70s and 80s was fairly new. My classmates in junior high thought I was nuts, and that 70s and 80s were oldies. At the end of high school, my favorite radio station had the Retro Hour and played music from the 80s.


So is retro different from an oldie? I suppose 90s music is retro now, or is it just old?

Discuss.

 

[Tanin]

I'd say an oldie is oh... 20 years ago.

Retro usually means to emulate an older style. Like the song Candyman by Christina Aguilera

 

[THUNDERSTRIKE]

to ME, the REAL and classic oldies are anything before 1980...

 

[highbloodman]

The real oldies for me might harken back to the infancy of recorded music and radio. That would be the phonograph era up to World War 2. Then we look at post-World War 2, it's quite the same. I'd use the Beatles as the reference point for when it starts getting modern. So oldie for me could be Beatles and older. But yes, as time goes on, even the 80s and new wave becomes the oldies of the next generation. Who knows when Britney and Aguilera become oldies themselves.

 

[Roadkill]

I imagine what constitutes an "oldie" is quite subjective based on ones age and musical experience. For example, since I'm in my 50s, 70's rock music was my formative musical experience and thus I would probably use the term oldie to describe pre-British invasion rock and earlier forms of music like big band. However, for all I know, Millenials might think of Nirvana as an oldie!

 

[Utracia]

I imagine what constitutes an "oldie" is quite subjective based on ones age and musical experience. For example, since I'm in my 50s, 70's rock music was my formative musical experience and thus I would probably use the term oldie to describe pre-British invasion rock and earlier forms of music like big band. However, for all I know, Millenials might think of Nirvana as an oldie!

I once heard Smells Like Teen Spirit on a classic rock station. Felt really depressed I gotta say.

But I agree with an above poster, before 1980 would be "classic" (much better word than "oldie" imo), the 80s is a genre all in itself, heh.