GenXers Who Called Their Parents’ Music ‘Oldies’ Suddenly Sensitive When Term Applied To ’80s, ’90s Hits

“Crap. I just remembered Eddie Van Halen is dead.”

Jerusalem, March 24 – Middle-aged residents of this city and others in the Western world who grew up referring to songs popular when their own mothers and fathers were growing up as “oldies” voiced indignation today upon hearing the word in reference to the contemporary music of their own youth.

Members of “Generation X,” born between roughly 1965 and 1980, whose formative years conditioned them to prefer the artistic performances and recordings of the late 1970’s, the 1980’s, and 1990’s, objected to millennials and the even-younger “Generation Z” cohort calling such songs “oldies,” despite having no such qualms when they were young about applying the term to the music of The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Doors, and other notable rock and pop music artists of the 1960’s, the analogous period in Gen-X parents’ lives.

More locally, Israelis of the Generation X cohort, now firmly in middle age, cringe when youngsters refer to artists such as David Broza, Ethnix, Aviv Gefen, and other figures of the country’s pop scene from several decades ago as “the classics,” even as radio stations geared toward the pop and rock genres target that demographic using the same terminology.

“Stop calling it oldies,” insisted Jerusalem mother of two Anna Lozkena. “Some of those bands are still performing and recording! Oldies would be the kind of music my parents used to listen to, such as the Stones or Paul McCartney, or… wait, those guys are also still performing, aren’t they?”

“I certainly don’t feel as old as my parents were when they played their oldies in the car,” mused Hai Bishlila, to whom, for all intents and purposes, Cardi B., Beyoncé, Dua Lipa, Pink, Lady Gaga, Demi Lovato, Selena Gomez, and Justin Bieber are all the same person. “It’s not like when I was a kid and my dad would put on the oldies station and listen to Chuck Berry or Neil Sedaka – I mean, everyone knew those were old already. But, I mean, Bon Jovi? Oh, crap, I just remembered Eddie Van Halen is dead.”

Even more galling to Gen-Xers, however, is the way contemporary youth elide the distinct musical periods of the seventies, eighties, and nineties into a single “oldies” or “classic” category. “It’s like they have no respect,” stressed Lozkena. “Like, if you can’t tell the difference between the sounds of hard-rock Guns ‘n’ Roses and blues-infused Aerosmith, you have no business talking about music at all. It’s not like the early 1970’s when everything sounded the same.”

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