I think if you play these oldies now with your arranger or todays instruments , it's mostly called mainstream. at least in europe it is.. Oldies is pre worldwar II

At last! You just beat me to this Freddy.
I was about to mail a similar letter about Oldies.
You are absolutely right. Oldies are the pre WW2 songs which stretch right back to the late 1800's (I still have some music sheets!)but mainly came in the early 1900's.
I have lots of this era music sheets and still enjoy the pure magic of its simple harmonies and lyrics of love and peace.
cheers
Eddie Johnson



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Eddie from Rotherham
Skype:eddiefromrotherham
www.yamahakeyboards.info

Seems you have longer memories in Europe than the States! I guess 90's music could be called contemporary over there?

I guess I started this one out more as a generalized 'oldies' question than a formal, capital 'O' 'Oldies', which, yes, often refers to 50's and 60's. I was just wondering if people in general had started to call 70's music 'oldies' yet...!!

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 06-08-2007).]

Soylent Green? You folks impress me with your knowledge of a lot of different things....a powerhouse, groundbreaking film. Way to go Chas and crew...I'm not surprised!

"Movie buff" Lay

In our area.."oldies" are the Doo Wop era..Pre world war2...no way..

Listen to an "oldies" radio station, and let me know how many pre WW2 tunes you hear

We don't have an oldies radio station, and you are right you don't hear pre WW2 tunes, which is probably one of the reasons we call these oldies.

We do have:
Classic rock radiostations
Classic Jazz radiostations

Funny though how one word (oldies) has different meanings on different continents.
In europe the oldies of the 50/60 are named by category like early pop, rock & roll, bebop etc...

Fred

It's always fun to see musicians pigeonhole music into different categories as precisely as they can, while the general public blithely ignores them completely, and calls it whatever they feel like... I've definitely heard a few kids refer to the Beatles as 'sort of oldies music'!

'Classic rock' really doesn't encompass the whole 70's thing very well. You wouldn't call Simon and Garfunkel 'classic rock', or Harry Chapin, or Carole King, or MANY 70's acts.

"Oldies' in the formal sense seems to include several fairly different types of music, it's not just doo-wop, but also Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, and many other artists from that couple of decades.

So what are the 70's and 80's going to get called? (Or are the 60's and 70's going to get lumped together instead?)

Sooner or later, I guess the general public (not us musicians!) is going to decide....