I'm out with a few friends from a professional association, and one of them asks me how things are going with the band. I tell her about our Fountains gig. I recount how they were playing oldies from KTUC-AM on the speakers, and how it made me think about what they'll be playing when I'm ready for the old folks' home.
"KTUC," one of my friends says. "Isn't that the really conservative oldies station?"
Huh. I have no idea what the station's political leanings are, but come to think of it, they do play a very specific kind of old music. I look up their playlist later online. Here are a few of the songs they've broadcast tonight:
"Beyond the Sea" by Bobby Darin
"Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford
"Love and Marriage" by Frank Sinatra
"September Song" by Tony Bennett
"Teach me Tonight" by the De Castro sisters
You get the idea: oldies lite. There's no "Splish Splash," no "Rock Around the Clock," definitely no "Louie Louie," for damn sure no "My Generation."
If a station like this is around when I'm in my 90s, they won't be playing REM. They'll be playing Boyz II Men.
NOW I'm depressed.
2 comments:
Sixteen Tons certainly isn't extolling the virtues that conservatives espouse, at least.
Good point. It sneaks onto Oldies Lite Radio because the screw-the-man message is obscured by a genial arrangement. Sort of like Steely Dan can sing about drugs, or a midlife-crisis-suffering dude hooking up with a much younger woman, and still get played in grocery stores.
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