Before they're gone forever would someone explain what the lyrics to LOUIE LOUIE and PUFF THE MAGIC DRAGON are about, please

Radio programmers virtually killed the oldies format at least a decade ago.  Anything now is just younger folks having a go at programming music they don't know to an audience who doesn't want to hear the same 400 songs played over and over AND over pretty much until the day they die.  It's called Hell.  And it sounds like it too.

Who cares about the pre-72 tunes?  Who's playing them anyway?  Heard a woman call John Fogerty...John Fu-GERdee the other day.  Really?  [and he's still recording new material and touring]

Recently Classic Rock Magazine has been wondering what'll become of annual Rock 'Festivals' as soon there'll be absolutely NO ONE to headline ANY of them.  As it is now there aren't enough acts to fill the rosters and some events are just plain GONE.  Not a single act in this new era of music has the jam, talent or body of work to own the planet.

Music USED to outsell all of the movies combined in terms of bucks spent.  That was then and this?  This is now.  Even if it is sounding better than it did even 5 years ago I'm afraid it's WAY too little and most decidedly WAY TOO LATE.

What they should be doing  is banning everything w/o a REAL connection to the past recorded between 1992 and 2012.  That's when music hit rock bottom and just lay there.

 

Last edited by Old Codger (August 28, 2015 9:09 pm)

Didn't see that one. But my point stands - the '60s are mostly gone from U.S. oldies/classic hits radio. It's a shame because that was such a great decade of music.

Satellite radio.  Sixties on Six.  And a special mention to Pat St. John's show from 1-5 ET.
Not for everyone, I know but perfect for me.  Great stuff, IMO.

Don wrote:

Outside of some smaller station, Oldies stations are barely playing ant pre-1972 anyway.

True. The oldies format morphs every decade or so in about a 20-year cycle. So the 80s and 90s are now in vogue on a lot of them, with a bit of the late 70s thrown in for good measure. Which explains Boom 97.3 as an example. (Although most refuse to call it what it is, preferring euphemisms like "classic hits" or "yesterday's favourites." It's kinda like the Ontario government referring to eveything as "revenue tools," or "premiums" when what they really mean is more taxes.)

But not being able to play pre-1972 tunes precludes almost the entire Beatles catalogue (unless you count "Free As A Bird" or "Real Love.".) Hard to be a complete oldies format without the option of playing a single song by arguably the most important rock band in modern music history. 

kiddies performed "House of the Rising Son" on Hamilton's CHML this afternoon

go kids go

CBS has weighed in with an argument against the pre-1972 songs lawsuit that is either brilliant or completely insane. In a nutshell, it appears they're trying to claim that playing tunes off a CD or other digital media - formats that weren't around in 1972 - means the songs in question have more modern day copyrights and thus the '72 rules don't apply.

Makes my head spin, frankly, but stranger court decisions have happened. 

CBS Radio Has Novel Argument to Legal Demand to Stop Playing Pre-1972 Songs

In (somewhat) related news, excellent WJJL Niagara reception in the GTA earlier this week (M-T-W) due perhaps to consistent overcast bouncing AM 1440 signals here.    Very good in higher elevations well north of Hwy 407.     Bill Parsons, Conway Twitty, Faron Young, Link Wray.    The 50s are not dead, you just have to be prepared to dig 'em up 

Radiowiz wrote:

getting tougher to find a 50's/60's Diner restaurant (In Toronto)...one that includes a little box on the wall at each table where you can request songs for a quarter each

Hamburgers were a quarter, grilled.cheese 10 cents and tunes were a nickel