Yep that’s the timeframe I’m thinking too.
What i find fascinating about that ad is that all the artists it mentions could still be played on a classic hits format today. In 1988 (before I was born) those songs were 25 yrs old max. But in 2026 a classic hits station is not dominated by post 2000 music. In fact it is roughly the same as what was considered classic in 1988 now that those songs are pushing 50 or 60 years old. How did that happen? And actually, 3GL specifically is now back and today they are playing songs that are even older!
3 Likes
Music peaked …
I know many disagree but I really believe it did.
I’m not saying I don’t enjoy some new music now because I definitely do. In fact I’m liking new music now more than the early 2000s. But I believe the sheer quantity of great music peaked from the late 60s to the early 90s. The actual peak is debatable but it’s in that window.
2 Likes
Quite possibly the pinnacle was early to mid 80s.
If you have a look at most singles charts from 1983-1985 and every song is a banger. A lot of them have remained memorable, are still played on radio and continue to be used in movie and television soundtracks.
1 Like
That’s exactly my personal peak - '83 to '85. As you say, look at any monthly Top 40 chart in that period (or from say mid-70s to mid-80s) and there are just SO many huge and memorable songs. Of course there are many songs from other periods that have stood the test of time but it’s the sheer volume of big songs and artists from the 70s and 80s that sets that time apart. Some of the biggest and most memorable songs that still get played today only managed to stay in the Top 10 for relatively short periods because there were always other big hits coming up to knock them off. It was just a different time.
1 Like
I’m going to add a bit of Gen-Z flavour to this, in our opinion a lot of today’s music is merely manufactured for the current trends, rather than standing out in becoming a true classic. Unfortunately for those that actually try to be unique, everything is working against them, seeing as pretty much every modern day agency is chasing a quick buck rather than going with those that would stand the test of time. And don’t forget the social media algorithms that are a big F-You in most cases to them.
We like listening to the classics purely because they go against today’s charting ‘hits’, they are actually good songs that both have a level of heart and soul poured into them, plus weren’t just chasing trends.
In terms of top 40, I agree the early to mid 80s is the peak of classics, however the timeframe could be well extended up until the year 2000, as I can see a whole lot of actual effort went into those. Personally I wouldn’t mind it go up until 2009 or so, when the real trend chasing started. Beyond there, it became really isolated, as I can count on one hand the amount of songs that have a real chance of being a classic (Gotye’s ‘Somebody I Used to Know’ and Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’ or ‘Skyfall’), but those even are highly subjective.
2 Likes
It’s subjective. There will never be a universally acknowledged “peak”. It’s all personal.
3 Likes
Agreed, these days I have to look for niches on Spotify, such as Lawrence, scary pockets etc, and that’s where I discovered Olivia Dean a year ago before she became popular in the mainstream.
There is still good music out there if you look hard enough, but you really really have to look. Unfortunately no radio airplay bar my community show
It has been reported before that songs seem to all be under 3 minutes now and go straight into lyrics rather than have a long musical intro.
I really noticed that the latest Harry Styles single Aperture had a long intro of 45 seconds, a long outro that is 45 seconds and the song goes for about 5 minutes 10 seconds (which is very long these days). But when it’s played on radio it has the intro and outro cut. 
I haven’t timed it but they may even edit the end of the song too where the chorus is repeated.
So he tries something different and the industry goes against him.
The whole world went mental about the release of this Harry Styles Aperture track but virtually ignored the release of Imposter by Louis Tomlinson on the same day. I actually like Imposter better than Aperture. It’s a good pop song and I think it deserved to do better on the chart but it failed to chart well.
1 Like
That’s almost a 12 inch version!
1 Like
That’s interesting. In the late 70’s, the typical single went from being about 3 minutes long to about 4 minutes. I read or heard somewhere that this was a reason why American Top 40 went from being a 3 hour show to a 4 hour show. So now it’s going the other way?
Yes it certainly has.
The reasons are:
- Listeners have shorter attention spans so artists don’t have long intros/outros or complex structures
- Platforms pay artists per stream so shorter songs encourage repeat listens on streaming services
- Tik Tok and Reels encourage 15 to 30 second high impact hooks, usually used at the start of a song
1 Like
I think they count anyone born from 1964 to about 1980 as a Gen X so I’m borderline.I agree that was when the best music was released 
1 Like
Listening to 3GL on 1341 AM today and they actually played the exact 
Classic hits live on jingle from that 1988 TV ad which is now in itself retro. I suspect they may have even sourced it from that exact youtube upload.
2 Likes
Given the passing of Dennis Cometti this week, here is an early shot of him from 1970, as a disc jockey at 3DB, Melbourne.
Source: Listener In-TV
9 Likes
DC the DJ on DB? I should have tried to DX that!
Never knew he was once a disc jockey.
1 Like
Just made an update to my TV clocks web app.
It includes a neat feature - an audio player for ABC Radio streams, with the streams all timestamped at the exact time the broadcast stream originated (with a 30 second delay), so you can work out the amount of delay involved in encoding and transport and compensate for it.
Therefore it’s possible to work out the precise delay and insert time pips at the appropriate time in the broadcast, just before the news starts. It seemed to work very well this afternoon on the stream for ABC Radio Sydney. So this lets you bring back the pips like the old times…
2 Likes
This means that you could have time pips on music stations, something that was almost never done.
FiveAA (5AA) in Adelaide is celebrating 50 years on air this week. It commenced on 9th March 1976, and was officially launched on 14th March by then SA Premier, Don Dunstan.
More: https://radioinfo.com.au/news/celebrating-50-years-of-fiveaa/
3 Likes
What was the original format? It was one of the latecomer AM stations like 3MP.