When I use the term "classic", as in that song is a classic or that movie is a classic, most folks tend to immediately conjure up images of their own standards of what defines a classic. This notion of "classic" therefore spans an extremely broad range depending on who you ask and which generation they belong to. What one person considers enduring, memorable, or vintage, another likely will label as wholly antithetical and completely inferior. This is especially true of someone from an older generation hearing the opinions of someone from a younger generation. The most often heard response of someone from an older or younger generation to your own definition of "classic" might be,
"I have never heard of that." Thus you can imagine that the playlist of the "oldies" station is not fixed and changes from decade to decade.
After a bit of noodling around, I made up the following table of classics defined by generation.
| Age Group | Music | Movie |
| Senior | Benny Goodman | Casablanca |
| Jimmy Dorsey | Gone With the Wind |
| Glenn Miller | Ben Hur |
| 40s,50s | Fleetwood Mac | Chinatown |
| Elvis | The Godfather |
| Elton John | Dr. No |
| 20s,30s | Britney Spears | Raiders of the Lost Ark |
| *NSYNC | Rainman |
| Eminem | Jurassic Park |
| teens | Taylor Swift | Avatar |
| Iggy Azalea | Hunger Games |
| Selena Gomez | Spiderman |
Perhaps these differences are as they should be. There is no right and wrong, good or bad. Each group should be allowed to hold onto whatever gives them comfort and resonates the strongest with their memories and their times.
