How Old Is Old?

I was browsing in a record store today (yes! a few still exist!), and I noticed an odd trend. Like many record stores (I should call it a CD store, because I didn't notice any actual LPs in there, but CD store sounds odd), it divided its inventory into various categories--rock, jazz, new age, classical, etc. They also had an oldies section, which isn't terribly unusual, either, but I was a bit surprised at what the oldies area included. There was the typical collection of '50s and early '60s performers and groups, some of the lesser British invasion participants, and even some psychedelia. Not terribly unusual. But then I noticed markers for Gang of Four of the Go-Gos. Well, when you think of it, those groups broke more than a quarter century ago. Just because I have first-hand memories of that era doesn't mean it's too close to the present to avoid the label of oldie. When I think about it, I work with people who are younger than Entertainment! and Beauty and the Beat. Although I wasn't particularly paying attention at the time, I realized later that I'd seen the Rolling Stones mixed in the regular rock section alongside Radiohead, The National, Arcade Fire, and whatever other current band you want to mention. Well, even though the Stones were England's newest hitmakers more than four-and-a-half decades ago, they've never broken up, so I guess they count as an ongoing concern. But then I also remembered seeing The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, Pink Floyd and--from the same era as Gang of Four and the Go-Gos--Talking Heads, the Sex Pistols, and the Clash. All those performers or bands have been caput for at least ten years (although some of them have reunited for live shows or tours from time to time).

So what's the logic here? I didn't think too much about this while I was in the store and didn't look through the oldies section terribly closely, so it's possible that Gang of Four and the Go-Gos are the only new-wave era performers included, possibly as some sort of joke by the staff or something. But it does raise a question. What should we be considering oldies today? I first heard the "Hits of the '60s and '70s" radio station in Texas back about 1983 or '84. At that time, radio didn't seem to be playing anything that wasn't current, so it was a refreshing change to hear songs again that you enjoyed in the past. That particular radio station announced that their playlist could consist of anything that was seven years old or more. Now those same kinds of stations play "Hits of the '60s, '70s, and '80s," and maybe a few of them stray into the '90s. But what would happen if anybody used that same "seven years or more" standard? Every U2 album except their latest one would qualify. Most of Eminem's output. Radiohead up through Kid A. All but the last Blur album and the last two Oasis albums. When I was 18, the music from seven years earlier, when I would've been 11, seemed like a whole different generation. Much of the music I just mentioned seems fairly contemporary (to me, anyway), but what does it sound like to an 18 year old? Whether that theoretical teen likes some of those groups, do they seem like they're somebody else's music? Everybody complains about the Baby Boomers ruling the airwaves, but are Generation X bands monopolizing our current awareness as much as the Boomers did back in the '80s and '90s?