Now that I'm back in America, I'm listening to the the American radio again.  

When I first got back to America, I was only listening to NPR in the car.  Or sometimes I would use my phone and listen to my podcasts.  But the past few weeks, I've started switching over to music stations, because when the wife and kids are in the car, it's nice to have music on for background.

Radio in America has of course changed since I've been gone.  Although not as much as I thought it had.  I had been under the impression that oldies radio stations were permanently gone from the cultural landscape, but oldies and classic rock stations are actually still around.  They've changed, of course.  I feel like the Doo-wop songs from the 1950s and early 60s are gone.  (e.g. when I was a kid, it wasn't unusualy to hear a song like Bristol Stomp on an oldies station, but you'd never hear this song on the radio nowadays, would you?)

(BTW, I'd completely forgotten this song even existed until Family Guy reminded me of it.  But once upon a time, it used to be a staple of oldies stations.)

But while the 1950s seems to have fallen off the radar,  oldies stations seem to have increased in their scope on the other side.  I've noticed that when I listen to oldies and classic rock stations, songs from the 1980s and 1990s are now considered oldies.  Well, fair enough I suppose.  Time has moved on.  Those songs are objectively old now.

But what does confuse me is how I seem to keep hearing the same songs over and over again.  Now that oldies/classic rock has expanded to include the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s, I would expect that these stations would have a lot more songs to draw on, and I would hear a new song each time I turned on the radio.  But instead, it seems to be the same 10 songs over and over again.  Another Brick in the Wall by Pink Floyd seems to be always on.  Sweet Emotion by Aerosmith is another one that I think I've heard 3 times this week already.  

As always, take everything I say with a grain of salt, because I've only been back a short time, and these are just my observations from the past few weeks of listening to the radio.  Those of you who've been listening to the American radio for the past few years will know better than me, I'm sure.

Nevertheless, despite my complaints about how repetive the classic rock stations have gotten on the radio, I have encountered a few songs the past week that I've not heard in years, and it's reminded me of how good some of these songs are.  And I may start sharing them on this blog as part of my Sharing Music I Like project.

Stay tuned for future posts.