klugness

Imagining Things

Predicting the Demise of 60s on 6

January 1, 2023 by Klugmeister

It's high time that I faced the fact that the Sirius XM station "60s on 6" will not be around forever. Having accepted this, I plan to speculate with reckless abandon in this, the eighth Imagining Things blog entry, about the potential timing of the station's ultimate demise—perhaps for no other reason than so I can brace myself for it. I'll also mix in some whimsical discussion about growing up with music under different generations.

But don't worry: this exercise will not be nearly as much of a nerdfest as my previous whimsical speculation regarding When Will Season 5 of Stranger Things Be Released? (Satirical), the third blog entry in which I trotted out mathematical models and, to make matters worse, discussed them at great length. Those who read that entire blog entry are still feeling traumatized. Poor thing—do you need a hug?

This image of a "record player" was created by Klugmeister with help from no one.

Ah, where was I? First off, let's deal with the elephant in the room. I sense that many of you are frantically dialing the batphone to inform me that the station in question is no longer called "60s on 6." Indeed, Sirius XM rebranded "60s on 6" as "60s Gold" in 2021 and moved it to channel 73. The same thing happened with "50s on 5," which is now "50s Gold" on channel 72.

Since I only listen to Sirius XM when I am driving my wife's car, I didn't notice the disappearance of "60s on 6" until I was driving the silver bullet in early 2022. I tuned to channel 6 and found that it was being occupied by "The Coffee House." At the time I feared that "60s on 6" was gone forever, but when I got home I ran a google search and found that the channel had simply been moved to some less valuable real estate on the channel spectrum—and no complaints from me there. It probably doesn't make sense to reserve prime channel slots for music that appeals to an increasingly elderly (and increasingly small) audience.

Incidentally, "The Pulse" now occupies channel 5, the former position of 50s on 5.

Sadly, I didn't even notice when "40s on 4" was temporarily replaced with Billy Joel music for three months during 2014. (Mind you, I am an old fart, but not nearly old enough to have grown up with 40s music, so I seldom tuned to that channel.) I understand there was lots of blowback from old folks (or their grown kids) upset over having their favorite channel displaced, even if the channel was still available in streaming form. I imagine fans of 40s music are a small but very vocal group, so it's dang near impossible to pull the plug on their channel. Music from the 40s currently lives on as "40s Junction" on channel 71, but I'm going to treat 2014 as the year Sirius XM tried to get rid of 40s on 4, and extrapolate from there to make educated guesses about when other decades channels will be targeted.

If the 40s station's wannabe demise year was 2014, it makes sense that the 50s channel may wannabe retired 10 years later—i.e., in 2024. Wow, that's just a year from now. Similarly, the 60s channel may wannabe eliminated in 2034. So perhaps I'll be able to enjoy "60s Gold" for at least 11 more years? And 21 more years for the 70s channel?

Being both curious and mathematically minded, I've tried to come up with a model / framework / interpretation for the age of the listeners that a decade channel appeals to, and how old those people may be when that decade's channel is ultimately targeted to be put out to pasture. Let's suppose that 40s music has the greatest appeal to folks who were age 12 to 21 during the 1940s. This is based on the assumption that the type of music people gravitate towards is primarily driven by the music that was popular during their teen years. So we're going to pretend that this person, who was 12 in 1940 and 21 in 1949, is the prototypical 40s music fan.

Doing some quick math, this prototypical person was born in 1928 (1940 minus 12). Thus, this sample person would have been in their mid 80s in 2014 when the 40s channel was temporarily replaced with Billy Joel music for three months (2014 minus 1928 = 86 years old). That is a ripe old age, and it doesn't seem particularly concerning to me that it grows more difficult for people to access their favorite music once they reach their mid 80s. Maybe such people are just happy if they can find Grape Nuts cereal at the grocery store, or the Medicare hotline doesn't leave them on hold for too long? But perhaps I'm being too critical. Being old myself, I have obstinate tendencies such as wanting all of the Barron's articles to appear in my weekly Barron's newspaper instead of online. And, I still write checks!

Admittedly, the decades music model isn't perfect. For example, my mom gravitated more toward popular music from when she was in her twenties (i.e., 50s music) as opposed to her teens, though she and my dad did enjoy watching The Lawrence Welk Show, which I assume is a 1940s-ish thing to do? As for me, I definitely listened to 70s music (which is generally consistent with what the model would predict based on my age), but I also liked 60s music. So, while my mom liked music from the decade after what the model would have predicted, I liked music from the decade before what the model would have predicted. Go figure.

This happened courtesy of my older brother and older sister, who were 10 and 8 years older than me. Besides treating me like I was king of Egypt, my older siblings often handed down their 45s to me and my younger brothers after the songs were no longer current hits.

Side note: 45s are 45 rpm records with the main hit single on the A side, and another song on the B side. (You may have seen them in a museum?) This is in contrast to "albums" which had lots of songs (same concept as now) and ran at 33 1/3 revolutions per minute (rpms). Hmm...since we spelled this out for youngsters who didn't grow up with vinyl, will they be more likely to visit our site, or will they just make fun of us like the "people who are becoming their parents" in the Progressive commercials? Let's see if they provide any comments in the feedback form right below our John Hancock!

As a young lad, I refused to take naps, so my mom would sit me down with the record player (which I knew how to operate) so that the record player (and the 45s) could essentially babysit me while she and the younger kids slept. Little did I know that I would someday get old and enjoy taking naps.

As for the model, it's pretty accurate for me. I got a stereo for Christmas when I was in sixth grade and promptly bought ZZ Top's "Fandango" album, which included the hit song "Tush." I bought more records, and my handy dandy older brother also passed down many of his albums to me. By the time I reached my mid twenties I was starting to grow out of touch with the latest music. So, considering my prime music years to be from age 12 to age 21 is not far off.

The decades channels often focus on the most popular hits, but a couple of the 1960s songs I remember hearing Big Bro and Big Sis play are off the beaten path. For example, I recall a novelty hit called Winchester Cathedral (1966), where—after a lengthy intro—a guy tries to blame an inanimate object (a building in England) for not intervening to stop his baby from leaving town. I must admit it's an innovative theme—i.e., it's not that his baby left him because (1) his feet smelled bad, or (2) he was always late to pick her up for dates—it's because a large cathedral failed to ring its bell and thereby inadvertently let her walk by, and now she's gone. It would never occur to me to pose that as an explanation for why my baby left me, but I do regard it as a bold, clever idea. Also, I've never written a hit song so who am I to complain? Despite having adult lyrics, Winchester Cathedral has a bit of a kid-friendly "Yellow Submarine" feel to it.

Another favorite is Victoria (1969), a pre-Lola Kinks song that wasn't one of the band's bigger hits, but got a lot of airplay in my house when I was growing up.

Big brother also handed down his old MAD magazines which brought much mirth to my young self, and surely helped inspire this site. Well, I reckon that's enough gabbing for now.

Happy new year!