boomer oldies

[Gillies, Lindsay]

Paul Mackin writes:
>
>I have been thinking about this possility in connection with the pop
>music of the sixties and ever after.  Seems to me there were
>two important innovations--1) the political content of the commercial
>songs we listen to, and 2) THE CONCEPT OF THE OLDY!
>
Ethan adds:
]The spread of music of the past is a relatively recent phenomenon because
]of the recent glut of recorded music.  With the creation of CD's, well
]recorded, easy to take care of music was suddenly available.  Obviously,
]people had record collections before CD's, but the market for CD's is much
]greater.  Starting in the 80's, everyone began having collections of music.
]And record companies, in their business-savy way, capitalized on this by
]re-releasing scads of old records, that were often out of print.  So all
]this music was suddenly again available.

Two marketing/economic trends are primarily responsible for "oldies".  (Of 
course, peoples' private collections have always supported them.)  Ethan 
points out the more recent of the two: CDs.  As an example, I just bought a 
copy of Ben Webster's first Norman Grantz recording, which my father bought 
new in the mid 50's and treasured---the lp must be unplayable.  The deal is 
that the companies own the rights, and cutting CDs is economic in smaller 
runs---no lp masters for pressing vinyl, etc.  Digital=fungible.
The main deal, however, is demographic.  Boomers bought stuff starting with 
Elvis.  They still constitute a huge bulge in the pipe---think of a slowly 
digesting boa.  Now we have some bucks (relatively speaking), our lps are 
wrecked, and since the early 80's the stations have targeted us as a great 
market.  So you can hear the beatles much more often than I could hear, say, 
Tommy Dorsey, in the 60's.