Veteran programmer Tony Waitekus still remembers the radio-station artist visit from a local band who told him how much they liked oldies. “So I asked them what some of their favorite oldies were. The first thing they said was ‘Sha La La’ by ? & the Mysterians.”
“Sha La La” was a truly unlikely choice, not known to Waitekus, or to me at the time. The best-known song by ? & the Mysterians, “96 Tears,” was for years a staple of the Oldies format until the ‘60s gave way to the ‘70s and ‘80s at Classic Hits. But this wasn’t even “Can’t Get Enough of You Baby,” revived by Smash Mouth in the late ‘90s. “Sha La La” was a late ‘60s post-hit collaboration with bubblegum producers Kasenetz & Katz, several years after the band had any radio footprint.
When Waitekus told me that story a decade ago, it felt like oldies were becoming untethered from their context. By then, it was clear that movies, TV, commercials, “American Idol,” and video games could help a song resurface. But there seemed to be more instances of oldies as random exotica, as typified by NPR reporting on obscure Columbus, Ohio, R&B label Capsoul. But digging into that question now, it seems the older songs that make their way to young listeners usually have a forensic trail, and one that often leads back to radio.
Recently, WSWO-LP (Oldies 97.3) Dayton, Ohio, PD Tony Peters wrote in response to our article on “Oldies XL,” stations like his with libraries that go beyond the Classic Hits safelist. In his own mobile-DJ work with younger audiences, Peters observed that a few “Blinding Lights” and “Uptown Funk”-level recent monsters got requests, but most of his requests were for ‘50s to ‘90s songs.
So what were those teens and young adults asking for? I posed that question to Peters, but to my Facebook friends as well. I specifically asked about “those songs beyond the ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’/ ’Brown Eyed Girl’ level of all-ages wedding song consensus.” Even with that setup, there were very few true outliers. Of the responses, the songs and bands most often mentioned were still radio staples, followed by some very prominent examples that had taken on a life of their own in pop culture.
Peters’ list of most-requested songs reads, almost, like power rotation at any researched Classic Hits station: “Come On Eileen,” “Take on Me,” “I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll,” “Livin’ on a Prayer,” “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Africa,” “Footloose,” and, yes, “Don’t Stop Believin’.” But it also includes Whitesnake’s “Still of the Night,” still heard on Classic Rock but not at the same frequency.
Peters also notes, as did many respondents, “lots of requests from the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtracks,” such as “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” or “Hooked on a Feeling.” He also says “I’m hearing the ‘50s everywhere.” Thanks to video games, “I heard ‘Only You’ by the Platters blasting from my kid’s room the other day.”
As is often the case with lists of favorites, many readers’ lists that were mostly hits, but with a surprise or two. Mike Miranda’s 13-year-old granddaughter liked the Beatles and Queen, two acts often cited in the same breath by readers, but also Lesley Gore and Bobby Vee. Tom Lacko’s 25-year-old liked Tom Petty, Van Morrison, and Paul Carrack. Waterloo Record writer Joel Rubinoff’s kids listened to Beatles, Queen, and the Guardians soundtrack, but had also discovered the band Tally Hall in the online coding game Scratch.
Of the nearly 120 examples of songs or artists mentioned by readers, the biggest piece (about 40%) were for songs or bands that still had a significant radio footprint at broadcast radio. Typically, that meant Classic Rock staples, but it could also mean “Africa” or Michael Jackson. Mainstream AC’s reach also goes beyond its 35-54 stronghold. Matthew Wilder’s “Break My Stride” seemed like a random choice for TikTok fame last year, but it was a song still heard at AC radio.
Veteran PD Cedric Hollywood mentioned the teen who requested Jodeci’s “Forever My Lady” specifically, but also the ‘90s in general. In fact, a few readers who mentioned ‘90s or specifically ‘90s Hip-Hop as getting requests from younger listeners, including Townsquare Utica, N.Y., OM Dave Wheeler. “All ages dance to ‘90s music and it’s time radio stop ignoring it,” he writes.
DISCOVER BILLY JOEL AND “VIENNA” WAITS
Even those younger listeners who liked superstar artists didn’t necessarily stop at the radio hits. There were a number of mentions of Billy Joel and his “Uptown Girl”-level hits, but also two fans of “Vienna.” Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now,” still not a radio song in North America, occupies a similar place in their pantheon as the more obvious hits. There were a lot of mentions of Electric Light Orchestra in general, but any specific mentions were for “Mr. Blue Sky,” propelled by Guardians and numerous other syncs.
Just because a song endured on the radio, radio wasn’t necessarily the prompt for young listening. Queen could have been driven by Bohemian Rhapsody, the movie. Elton John by Rocketman. Only about a third of readers mentioned how their kids knew certain songs or artists. But in half of those instances, parents cited music that they had played for their kids, in which case WAPS (The Summit) Akron, Ohio, PD Brad Savage’s eight-year-old son liking Neil Young’s Harvest Moon album isn’t quite as unlikely.
After “songs and bands still heard on the radio,” the next largest chunk of responses, about a third, were for big hits that were less available these days on broadcast radio. Many of those were songs and acts that still occupy a place in the “eternal jukebox” of all-ages event records — Motown, Beach Boys, Monkees, Chubby Checker, and “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” A few were slightly more surprising — “Everyday People,” “Subterranean Homesick Blues,” “Runaround Sue.”
ETERNAL KID SONGS
There were the songs and acts that had retroactively found a place in pop culture that transcends radio — often with the help of TV and movies. Stranger Things didn’t quite have the footprint of Guardians, but did get mentioned. Bob Marley, Dolly Parton, and especially Johnny Cash made appearances. “Ring of Fire” is the Cash song with the biggest pop-culture footprint, followed by “I Walk the Line” and “Folsom Prison Blues,” but there were mentions of “Hey Porter” and “Ballad of a Teenage Queen” too. Bill Cain cited Cash, but also Marty Robbins’ “El Paso,” Lorne Greene’s “Ringo,” and the sort of Country story songs that were teenage boy favorites 60 years ago.
Some songs have a long history of being passed down among generations long after their time on the radio had ended. Longtime music writer Chuck Eddy’s 13-year-old recently “became obsessed” with Allan Sherman’s “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” before going to summer camp for the first time, then discovered other Sherman songs. I knew Sherman—first “Muddah” but then others–from TV commercials, then from the syndicated Dr. Demento show in the ‘70s and ‘80s.
Only about 12% of the responses named songs or artists that I’d consider true outliers — not fitting any of the descriptions above. But they may just be from video games or TV shows I’m not aware of. A neighbor once surprised me by saying that she was listening to the garage rock of Fort Worth, Texas. Then I found out about this documentary. Today, the trail is often to TikTok, although somebody had to put those songs there in the first place.
So when Country Insider’s Brian Mansfield mentions that his 19-year-old daughter likes “Oo-De-Lally” by Roger Miller from 1973’s Robin Hood soundtrack, it seems random. But that song was in an Android commercial, and on Disney compilations, and remade by Eric Church on a tribute album. Frequent contributor Josh Hosler was surprised by a 12-year-old’s request for “Me and My Arrow” by Nilsson at a recent party. But plenty of parents remembered it from the movie The Point as well.
Reader “Dr. Bob” Woodruff, now in his 20s, mentions finding “Today is Mine,” an obscure ‘70s Glen Campbell cover of a Jerry Reed song, in his teens — something he came across in a special on the opening of Walt Disney World. That probably ties for the most exotic answer with Savage, whose eight-year-old has discovered Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” from the Netflix film NextGen.
IT’S NOT “Y-Y-Y-YOUR GENERATION”!
When I first heard Waitekus’s “Sha-La-La” story, I had a strange twinge of grumpy-old-man resentment. I had started listening to pop music just before ‘60s bubblegum peaked; it was a fond memory of childhood. As for older music, I had gone back and taught myself that from Oldies radio, chart books, and the recommendations of older friends who had lived through those songs as hits. I came to accumulate tons of obscure favorites over the years through record collecting, but I felt like I had done the work to place those songs in context. How dare some 22-year-old just stumble on them?
Canada’s Adam Sobolak, always one of my more thoughtful commenters, had a similar take. “These anecdotes of kids learning about songs through video games and TikTok seem strangely disembodied, entropic even — the product of an era of earbuds and cultural silos and memes. [It’s] like they’re bobbing their heads to these songs, yet they aren’t really seeking to know [about them], nor do they care to know.” But he also allows, “It might be like how my generation basically got their knowledge of classical and Broadway fare through Bugs Bunny cartoons.”