I was chugging along Highway 41 one day, flipping through the preset radio stations in my car when a song caught my ear.
"I've toured around the world / From London to the Bay / It's Hammer, go Hammer, MC Hammer, Yo Hammer / And the rest can go and play / Can't touch this."Of course, I was jammin' along. Say what you want about "Ice Ice Baby" and other songs of its ilk, but there's no denying, even 18 years later, that MC Hammer's "U Can't Touch This" is awesome.
When I looked down at my radio dial, though, I was surprised at what I saw.
It said 97.9 -- best known as Mega 97.9, Fresno's home for jammin' oldies.
The oldies station? Hammer was on the oldies station? Really? How? When?
It was shocking because this was the first song I remembered from my youth to turn up on the oldies station. It felt kinda like turning 21, going to a bar and seeing one of your elementary school teachers sipping a Long Island.
I was 11 when "U Can't Touch This" came out, a fifth-grader in the Bay Area. It was Hammer Pants and Hammer Mania then. So hearing "U Can't Touch This" on the oldies station, well, touched me.
It also got me pondering "oldies." What is an oldie? Who determines an oldie? Is making it to the oldies station like making it to the hall of fame in sports? Once you've been retired a certain numbers of years, do you need a certain amount of votes? Is there a committee? The Good Ol' Deciders of Oldies? Is Brenton Wood on it?
Luckily, Jeff Davis, the program director at Mega 97.9 (KMGV, FM) called me back before the question mark button on my keyboard went on strike for overuse.
"There's no rule," Davis says. "It's all about perception. You listen to a song on Tuesday: you hear it again on Wednesday, it's old."
What makes it onto the oldies circuit can depend. Davis says Mega does market research to see what people like. In Fresno, that's reflected in more rhythmic choices -- or what they call "jammin' oldies."
Plus, he says, the word "oldie" has a pretty broad definition, one that's often lumped ambiguously in a box with "back in the day," "retro" and "throwback."
"You can call Snoop Doggy Dogg an oldie. You can call Frank Sinatra an oldie. You can call Kelly Clarkson an oldie," he says.
In fact, Mega's been playing "U Can't Touch This" for about five years now, Davis says. Also in rotation are songs like "Push It" by Salt-N-Pepa and "Smooth" by Santana.
"Smooth" is an interesting case because that came out in 1999 -- less than 10 years ago.
"Normally I wouldn't put a song that's less than 10 years old and call it an oldie," he says, but Carlos Santana is a special case because he's the station's No. 1 artist.
"An oldie can be the freshest song in your mind, if you're doing a dedication to somebody," Davis says. "It can take you back to memories. It can also create new memories."
Like that time you were driving along and heard a song from your childhood on the oldies station.
That's a memory, all right.
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