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Oldies is a term for musical genres such aspop music,rock and roll,doo-wop,surf music from the second half of the 20th century, specifically from around the mid-1950s to the 1980s, as well as for aradio format playing this music.
Since 2000, 1970s music has been increasingly included in this genre.[1] "Classic hits" have been seen as a successor to the oldies format on the radio, with music from the 1980s serving as the core example.
This category includes styles as diverse asdoo-wop, earlyrock and roll,novelty songs,bubblegum music,folk rock,psychedelic rock,baroque pop,surf music,soul music,rhythm and blues,classic rock, someblues and somecountry music.[2]
Golden Oldies usually refers to music exclusively from the1950s and1960s.[2] Oldies radio typically features artists such asElvis Presley,Chuck Berry,The Beatles,Jerry Lee Lewis,The Beach Boys,Frankie Avalon,The Four Seasons,[3]Paul Anka,Neil Sedaka,Little Richard[4] andSam Cooke; as well as such musical movements and genres as early rock and roll,rockabilly,doo-wop,soul music,Motown,British Invasion, earlygirl groups,surf music,teen idol singers,teenage tragedy songs andbubblegum pop. Music from thefolk revival and instrumentalbeautiful music are among the most commonly excluded recordings from the Oldies era.[5]
Most traditional Oldies stations limit their on-air playlists to no more than 300 songs, based on the programming strategy that average listeners and passive listeners will stay tuned provided they are familiar with the hits being played. A drawback to this concept is the constant heavy rotation and repetition of the station's program library, as well as rejection of the format by active listeners. This can be avoided either through the use of a broader playlist or by rotating different songs from the Oldies era into and out of the playlist every few weeks.
Oldies has some overlap with theclassic hits andclassic rock formats. Classic hits features pop and rock hits from the early 1970s to early1990s, while classic rock focuses on album rock from the late 1960s to 1990s (sometimes playing newer material made in the same style as the older songs). As formats havedrifted in time with their target audiences, classic hits and classic rock have moved further away from pure Oldies, which has largely remained a static format.
In the early days of the rock era, the term Oldies referred to thetraditional pop songs of previous decades; a 1953 record review inBillboard describes 1925's "Yes Sir, That's My Baby" as an Oldie.[6] Oldies is known for the near-total and sometimes arbitrary exclusion of some acts that were very popular in their time, includingThe Osmonds[7] andBarbra Streisand.[8]
A variation on the Oldies theme is classic hits, which provides most of the playlist of Oldies with some classic rock with an addition of contemporaneous R&B and pop hits as well, creating a balance between the mostly 1970s-focused classic rock genre and the more broad-based Oldies format. The evolution of Oldies into classic hits is an example ofchannel drift.
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The Oldies format began to appear in the early 1970s.KOOL-FM inPhoenix became one of the first radio stations to play Oldies music, at that time focusing on the 1950s and early 1960s.
In the 1960s, very fewtop 40 radio stations played anything more than a few years old. In the late 1960s, a few FM stations adopted top 40 formats that leaned towards adults who did not want to hear the same 30 songs repetitively but also did not want to hear music featured onMiddle of the road radio stations. They mixed in Oldies with their current product and only played new music a few times an hour. These radio stations were often referred to as "gold" stations. Some AM radio stations also began to employ this format. There were also syndicated music format packages such asDrake-Chenault's "Solid Gold" format, frequently used on FM stations that needed separate programming from their AM sisters (due to then-newFCC rules onsimulcasting), that functioned as a hybrid of Oldies and the adult-oriented softer rock hits of the day. The popularity of the movieAmerican Graffiti is often credited with helping to spur the 1950s nostalgia movement of the early 1970s. It is this movement that gave rise to a number of gold-based stations, such asWHND/WHNE (Honey Radio) inDetroit,WCBS-FM inNew York City,WQSR inBaltimore, andWROR inBoston, that were classified as Oldies stations and notadult top 40. These stations, did play current product sparingly (one or two per hour) throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s; WCBS-FM, for example, played current hits under the moniker "Future Gold" through the late 1980s, andWLNG on nearbyLong Island featured a roughly 50/50 mix of current hits and Oldies from the early 1960s until about 1999.
Most of these "Solid Gold" stations began to either evolve into other formats or drop the format altogether in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Most AM gold stations flipped to other formats. Some FM stations evolved intoadult contemporary stations, includingWROR in Boston andWFYR inChicago. In the early 1980s many AC stations began mixing in more Oldies into regular rotation and aired Oldies shows on Saturday nights.
Beginning in 1982, both AM and FM stations began changing to full-time Oldies formats. These stations played strictly music from 1955 to 1973, focusing on the 1964–1969 era. Among these Oldies stations wereWNBC inNew York City before 1988,WDRC-FM inHartford, Connecticut,WODS in Boston,WOGL inPhiladelphia,KLUV inDallas,WWSW inPittsburgh,WJMK inChicago, andCHUM inToronto. Some had as few as 300 songs while stations like WODS and WOGL had as many as 1,500 songs in regular rotation. By 1989, most large and medium markets had at least one, usually FM, Oldies station.
This period also saw the rise of syndicated radio shows specifically aimed at an Oldies format. They includedSoundtrack of the 1960s withMurray the K,Dick Clark's Rock, Roll & Remember,Live from the '60s withThe Real Don Steele,Cruisin' America withCousin Brucie, andRock & Roll's Greatest Hits withDick Bartley. Most of these shows were three hours long and featured much of the same music from the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s that was in rotation at affiliate stations. All but a few of these shows had ended their run by the mid-1990s, though Bartley's ran into the late 2000s (and eventually returned for several years in the late 2010s) while Clark's show continued until his 2004 stroke and in reruns until 2020.
From 1986 to 1990 several solid gold stations evolved into full-time Oldies stations by eliminating current and recent product while also gradually eliminating 1980s songs and limiting 1970s songs substantially. KRTH and WQSR both did this in the late 1980s into the early 1990s. WCBS-FM however continued playing current product in regular rotation until 1988. After that, they played it once an hour between 11pm and 5:30am, until 2001. WCBS-FM also played several 1990s songs per shift during these overnight hours. They also continued to play between one 1980s song every couple of hours to as many as two per hour day and night. WCBS-FM also played from three to five songs per hour from the 1970s. They indeed played more 1970s music than any other notable Oldies station. At the same time, WCBS-FM featured slightly more pre 1964 songs than the average station playing as many as five of those per hour.
Oldies stations continued to be late 1960s based throughout the 1990s. WCBS-FM was an exception. Most AM Oldies stations also disappeared by the early 1990s except in markets where there was no FM oldies outlet. The format fared well with no end in sight.
Beginning in 2000, Oldies stations began to notice that their demographics were getting older and harder to sell. Still, at that time only a few stations dumped the format altogether. A few, such asOrlando'sWOCL andSacramento'sKHYL shifted to the briefly popular and moredisco-centricrhythmic oldies format; most others continued to hang onto the format initially.
Since around 2000, stations have begun to limit selections from the 1950s and early 1960s. At the same time, these stations began playing songs from as late as 1979 and even a few 1980s songs. WCBS-FM New York slightly cut back on the pre-1964 oldies and slightly increased the 1970s and 1980s songs early in 2001. They also eliminated the overnight currents at the same time along with some specialty shows.
In 2002, many Oldies stations began dropping pre-1964 music from their playlists, since the earlier music tended to appeal to an older demographic that advertisers found undesirable—hence, the addition of music from the 1970s and early 1980s. WCBS-FM canceled their "Doo Wop Shop" program and began playing only one pre-1964 oldie per hour; by 2003, there were fewer than 50 songs from the 1950s and early 1960s in their regular rotation.
Many stations have since dropped the Oldies format because of low ad revenue despite high ratings. On June 3, 2005, New York City's WCBS-FM, an Oldies-based station for over three decades, abruptly switched to the Jack FM format, resulting in a tremendous outcry from Oldies fans in theBig Apple and a huge decline in revenue followed.[9]WJMK in Chicago (WCBS-FM's sister station) switched to Jack FM on the same day. Some[who?] point to the demise of WCBS-FM and WJMK as a sign that the Oldies format is in danger, for many of the same reasons that theadult standards andsmooth jazz formats are disappearing.
The Oldies format returned to WCBS-FM on July 12, 2007, in an updated form featuring music from 1964 to 1989 without the word "Oldies", but rather "Greatest Hits" in the on-air positioning, with songs such as "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" byCyndi Lauper, "Gloria" byLaura Branigan, and corporate rock hit "We Built This City" byStarship in rotation (though the original WCBS-FM played current hits mixed in with its Oldies as late as the late 1980s and the three songs mentioned here during most of their years).
By the mid-2010s, as the phrase "classic hits" came to entail a format centered around late 1970s (disco-era) and 1980s pop, dance and rock format, the phrase "Oldies" had come to entail a 1960s to mid-1970s format that centered mostly onsoft rock andeasy listening (akin to the oldMOR format), examples includingWRME-LD in Chicago.[10] More upbeat 1960s and 1970s stations are known within the industry as "gold" classic hits.[11] A decade later, in the mid-2020s, the classic hits format had effectively fully separated from oldies as classic hits had begun to encapsulate thehip-hop era of the late 1990s and early 21st century.[12]
As of 2020, 1960s music is becoming increasingly rare on radio. Of the 1000 most played songs on radio as of May 2020, only four of them are from before 1970, and three of them also benefit from being aired on classic rock, Oldies, and classic hits stations.[13] Of the 100 songs that suffered the most drop-off in popularity from their heyday to 2022, a majority were from the 1960s; 56% were from before theBritish Invasion and another 13% were from then to 1969.[5][13] This is despite a small pantheon of songs from that era that have become part of an "eternal jukebox of all-ages event records," as well as parents and grandparents who had listened to the music when they were younger passing those songs on to their children; in the latter case, the older songs popular among the younger crowd can be more random, driven by exposure in television, film, commercials and person-to-person interactions.[14]
The Oldies format remains one of the most popular formats on radio in markets where it is still active. Some of the most successful major-market Oldies stations today includeKRTH "K-Earth 101" inLos Angeles,XHPRS-FM "105.7 the Walrus" inTijuana-San Diego,KOLA 99.9 inRiverside-San BernardinoKYNO inFresno, California, 98.1WOGL inPhiladelphia,WMJI "Majic 105.7" inCleveland, andKSPF inDallas.WLS-FM inChicago, however, is similar to the way Oldies stations sounded several years back, still playing one or two pre-1964 songs an hour during the day and as many as four an hour at night. However, to illustrate the continued decline in the format,San Francisco'sKFRC moved toward Classic Hits in 2005 and dropped this format entirely in 2006 in favor of theRhythmic AC "MOViN" format, which left most ofNorthern California without an oldies station until the debut ofKCCL (K-Hits 92.1) inSacramento in January 2007. However, KFRC had already evolved its format and positioning to classic hits at the time it changed to "Movin". But KFRC was not gone for long. On May 17, 2007, withFree FMhot talk format failing on 106.9 KIFRCBS relaunched KFRC with a rock leaning classic hits format on 106.9. But KFRC was not back for long either. On October 27, 2008, 106.9 KFRC FM became an all news 740 KCBS AM simulcast. KFRC now only airs on 106.9 FM HD-2 and online at KFRC.com. But KFRC came back again. On January 1, 2009, KFRC returned on the radio at 1550 AM, as true Oldies.
KZQZ, which aired inSt. Louis, and began playing Oldies in March 2008, held onto the traditional Oldies format, playing a wide variety of top 40 Billboard hits from the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s, until the FCC forced the station off the air in 2020. Non-commercialWXRB, 95.1 FM inDudley, Massachusetts (one of the first non-commercial all-Oldies stations in North America) began playing Golden Oldies on March 6, 2005, at 1:00pm, focusing on the years 1954 through 1979.
On August 27, 2009,Grand Rapids, Michigan stationWGVU became the firstpublic radio station to feature an all-Oldies format. The format has since been imitated by other public radio stations; for example,WCNY-FM inSyracuse, New York has begun broadcasting a personality-based oldies format on itsHD Radiodigital subchannel.
Jones Radio Networks,Waitt Radio Networks andTranstar Radio Networks also offered 24-hour satellite-distributed Oldies formats; since those companies have integrated into theDial Global corporation, the networks have merged into one,Kool Gold.Satellite Music Network offered "Oldies Radio", which survived until its acquisition byABC but has since rebranded as Classic Hits Radio under current ownerCumulus Media Networks, focusing on music primarily from the 1970s and 1980s, with some limited 1960s music.
ABC also offeredThe True Oldies Channel, a 24-hour Oldies network programmed andvoice tracked at all hours byScott Shannon, at the time morning show host at ABC'sWPLJ. The True Oldies Channel was conceived on the concept of avoiding the drift into 1970s and 1980s music that the Oldies format was undergoing in the first years of the 21st century. Eventually, by the end of the network's terrestrial run in 2014, it had taken a hybrid approach, with both 1960s and 1970s music being featured at the core of the network, with some limited 1980s music included.
InNorth America,satellite radio broadcastersXM andSirius launched in 2001 and 2002, respectively, with more than a dozen Oldies radio channels, with XM offering separate stations for each decade from the 1940s to the 1990s, and Sirius doing the same for the 1950s through the 1980s, initially all in prime single-digit channel positions. These companies also offered specific genre channels fordisco and dance hits,garage rock,classic rock,classic country, and vintage R&B andsoul hits.[15][16] These pay radio channels boasted thousands of songs in their libraries, ensuring far less repetition than traditional broadcast stations. In November 2008, following amerger of Sirius and XM, the two services shifted to a unified group of decades channels, with the playlists for most cut back to reflect a more conventional style of Oldies programming. SiriusXM further marginalized its Oldies stations over the years, moving its 1940s channel off channel 4 in 2015, then in 2021 by moving its 1950s and 1960s channels out of their 5 and 6 channel slots respectively.Music Choice similarly offers an interruption-free Oldies station, which includes music from the 1950s, 1960s, and decades channels for the 1970s through the 1990s. A number ofInternet radio stations also carry the format.
From the late 2010s until 2022,shortwave radio stationWTWW operated an Oldies service in the evening hours.[17][18][19] In November 2022, WTWW lead engineer Ted Randall left the station and took the Oldies programming to a dedicated transmitter onWRMI a short distance down the dial from WTWW on the60-meter band.[20]
