Oldies

Listening to the oldies station in my car, I was a little surprised to hear Jack and Diane. It was released in 1982 - how is Mellencamp considered fodder for the elderly?

Hey, Oldies 104.3 - jumping the gun a bit?

Thing is, I rarely listen to the oldies station. I don't listen to mainstream radio all that much anymore, really. I have a good stash of CDs in the car, and they seem to do well in the rotation. Every so often, I attempt a listen of a few stations, but in the past few days, every single time I turn on 89X, that annoying Offspring song is playing. Every. Time. I am not kidding.

Of course, now that I think about it, my parents were roughly my age in the early eighties, and while I see them as eternal thirty-two year olds, I suppose that there's a chance they might be getting older.

Growing up with my parents' music was interesting to say the least. My mom liked folksy stuff like John Denver, James Taylor, and the Moody Blues, while my dad ran the gamut between The Beatles, Cream, Beethoven, and Brahms. We listened to the music from Annie and Camelot, The Phantom of the Opera, and Romeo and Juliet.

One of my favorites was Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf. I know. But I loved it!

I know that the oldies station plays mostly hits - with the occasional one-hit-wonder. I doubt that it could be completely representative. I mean, it's just the most popular stuff, right?

So what will I hear in 2030 when I'm fifty? Will the oldies station be filled with music from my teenage years like Nirvana, Bonnie Tyler, and Boys II Men? Or will it maybe have stuff like Radiohead, Ryan Adams, and Joshua Radin?

Oh God.

What if the oldies station is filled with Britney Spears, Backstreet Boys, and Mariah Carey?

My kids will certainly question my taste in music. And my sanity.

"Once they think you listened to us,
your kids will never take you seriously again!"