Tomorrow's Classics

June 14, 2005 6:33 PM

What songs/bands from the current decade will be played on classic hits radio stations in twenty years?

If any.

posted by alms to Media & Arts (30 answers total)

The ones that people still like.
posted by mokujin at 6:45 PM on June 14, 2005

well, if you take a look at what mostly gets played on classic hits radio stations now, it'd be a good bet that anything which hit the top ten stands a good chance of getting rotated, and anything in the top 40 is fair game.

How much music that was obscure at the time do you hear on classic rock stations, you know?

if you want to know what bands are going to be considered seminal to future music -- well, that'd be a different answer.

Plus, who says we'll have radio in 20 years?
posted by fishfucker at 6:50 PM on June 14, 2005

Wishful thinking answer: Radiohead
Crappy realistic answer: Coldplay
posted by matildaben at 6:59 PM on June 14, 2005

Outkast, without any doubt whatsoever. Britney Spears' "Toxic".
posted by Tlogmer at 7:04 PM on June 14, 2005

Ashlee Simpson: "Lala".
posted by signal at 7:18 PM on June 14, 2005

Point of order, the question was "classic hits radio stations", not "classic rock".
posted by signal at 7:19 PM on June 14, 2005

The last decade? I can see Britney Spears, The Spice Girls, N'Sync, The Backstreet Boys, Coldplay, U2, AC/DC for sure. Maybe Oasis, Radiohead, Avril Lavigne, Gwen Stefani, 50 Cent, Weezer, Outkast.

It's too early to tell for the really new stuff.
posted by Count Ziggurat at 7:27 PM on June 14, 2005

You will hear all the songs played so much you're sick to death of them. That's been my experience.
posted by wordswinker at 7:43 PM on June 14, 2005

Anything by Creed, no doubt. And, songs by No Doubt!

Yes, the future is a boot coming down on a face, forever and ever.
posted by interrobang at 7:44 PM on June 14, 2005

Just turn on a contemporary hits station. That's what will be on a classic hits station in twenty years. The playlists are damn near identical.
posted by mischief at 7:52 PM on June 14, 2005

Franz Ferdinand.
posted by ascullion at 8:48 PM on June 14, 2005

Nickelback, Metallica, U2, some fo those boy bands, the Spears/Simpson/etc crowd, SOAD, NiN, Tool.
posted by jmd82 at 9:09 PM on June 14, 2005

I don't know about you guys, but the radio stations in L.A. continue to play Sublime with frequency. Maybe that's because the band was semi-local, but it's been 7 years since the album came out, and I must hear them at least twice or three times a week. That's a good example of a band that seems to have some longevity, even though they haven't existed since 1996, before the album even came out. I know the songs were big hits when they were current, but I never would've guessed they'd still be getting play.
posted by incessant at 10:55 PM on June 14, 2005

Sublime is just an L.A. thing. The frequency with which I heard Sublime on the radio went way, way down when I moved away. L.A. radio loves its local bands -- the rest of the planet doesn't hear the Eagles or Oingo Boingo nearly as much as you do either.

Tool? Radiohead? Come on, these bands can't get on the radio now, never mind in twenty years.
posted by jjg at 12:58 AM on June 15, 2005

I am scared of the day that I will hear "Hey Ya" on an oldies station...
posted by Asparagirl at 1:07 AM on June 15, 2005

Production gets old really fast. What makes pop music last is melody and harmonies.

I would say that most of the suggestions in this thread are probably right, but I'd like to add stuff like Backstreet Boys to the list.
posted by sveskemus at 3:00 AM on June 15, 2005

R.E.M., U2, Oasis.
posted by McIntaggart at 4:24 AM on June 15, 2005

Classic hits stations will always play The Eagles and Creedence. They played them in the 80s. They played them in the 90s. They play them now. In 2040, they will still be playing them. Nothing is surer.
posted by Jimbob at 4:36 AM on June 15, 2005

I can't think of any stations that still play songs by New Kids on the Block or Tiffany, so I'm holding out hope that the last cycle of boy bands and teen idols won't make it to "classic" radio either.
posted by patgas at 5:20 AM on June 15, 2005

R.E.M. and U2 are already on 80's "classic" formats. And y'all realize that Sublime "isn't around" anymore because the guy died, right?

My money's on fishfucker's answer. In 20 years, radio won't be anything like it is now. It'll be some combination of on-demand listening and ultra-niche playlists. The widespread availability of music and portable players, along with a shift from radio to movies and television as a means to "introduce" new music, are the death knell for that format.
posted by mkultra at 6:54 AM on June 15, 2005

What matildaben said.
posted by Decani at 7:29 AM on June 15, 2005

Also, I'd just like to say that I've never even heard of Sublime.
posted by Decani at 7:30 AM on June 15, 2005

Decani: picture The Clash, Bob Marley, and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones mashed together...sometimes punk, sometimes ska, sometimes reggae...
posted by schyler523 at 9:05 AM on June 15, 2005

Nirvana.
posted by ludwig_van at 10:08 AM on June 15, 2005

Nothing worth hearing.
Keep in mind that a lot of the stuff that is now venerated by boomers (and they make the market for classic hits) wasn't mainstream when it first came out. Musicians like Jimi Hendrix weren't played on normal radio: they were played on this new thing called FM. Woodstock wasn't even nearly as big as it's remembered; the big attention came after the film came out (yes, there were tremendous lines to get in, but people in Peoria had no idea). Hippies were a minority.
In the future, "oldies" stations will be either segregated by decade (meaning that the 2000s station will be playing your Rob Thomas and Outkast hits) or by that broad sense of easy listening that pervades oldies stations now (while flipping through the stations, I head Paula Abdul's Straight Up on our Kool107 Classics and Golden Oldies station).
This is, of course, assuming that we don't all have mind plugs to listen to music on. Or brain slugs, which sap our need for music.
posted by klangklangston at 10:44 AM on June 15, 2005

Decani: You remember that damn What I Got song that was middling 2/2 punk with the shitty MC in the middle? That was Sublime. Thank God for heroin.
posted by klangklangston at 10:46 AM on June 15, 2005

Decani: picture The Clash, Bob Marley, and The Mighty Mighty Bosstones mashed together

OK... I'm doing it...I'm doing it... oh holy shitting Jesus on a Segway.... hey klangklangston - got any heroin you can spare?
posted by Decani at 6:12 AM on June 16, 2005

Whadaya want, the stuff that killed Shannon Hoon, or the stuff that made Charlie Parker great?
posted by klangklangston at 12:20 PM on June 16, 2005

or the stuff that made Charlie Parker great?

klangklang, repeat after me: Parker was great in spite of heroin, not because of it. Repeat as often as necessary to clear the heroin-music-death cult out of your brain.
posted by jokeefe at 6:43 PM on June 16, 2005

klangklangston: I think I fancy some of that stuff that made Lou Reed an objectionable asshole, actually. That'd cheer me right up.
posted by Decani at 8:06 AM on June 18, 2005