MADISON, Wis. -- It can be argued that Baby Boomer culture is American culture, and it isn't going anywhere soon.

Boomers have driven American pop culture for decades. They were the first generation raised with television. But now, as Boomers begin to enter their 60s, will their grip on popular culture become less so?

You can't scan through the radio dial without hearing the music of a generation. Thirty years after the songs hit the airwaves, baby boomer music is still as popular as ever. Boomers continue to dominate popular culture, movies and television, and to a lesser extent, pop music. And as long as that's the case, the music will live on. Why is that?

"The easy answer it's the soundtrack for people of my age," said Craig Werner, Afro-American studies professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Werner has studied the effects of music on American culture for years and has written books on the subject.

"I think it's a memory for the country as a whole of a time that we still don't understand very well. We know of the 60s, we know of the civil rights movement, we know Vietnam were extremely important to what's happened to America and that music is the music that has accompanied the images of that, movies about it," Werner said. "And I think it's a music that challenges us to think about what America is in ways we both do and don't want to do."

Of course, Boomers will listen to the music they grew up with, but what about younger generations? Will the Boomers' music fade out after they're gone?

"The younger generation has a strange relationship to the music. On the one hand it's their parents' music, and just like rock 'n roll in the first place, the kids are going to find something that we hate," Werner said. "There's a lot of the rock 'n' roll that just sounds like noise -- I'm sounding like my dad here."

But Werner said the some Boomer music resonates with younger generations.

"What you find with almost all members of the younger generation is there's at least a piece of the boomer music that they like. A whole lot of people love Aretha Franklin's music. A whole lot of people love Stevie Wonder's music. Everybody loves the Beatles' music. You know the Beatles are going to be around as long as Shubert songs are around, as long as those great classical composers are around," Werner said.

And Madison Avenue has taken the cue, using Baby Boomer music to sell to Baby Boomers.

"If I can feel really good about a product because the music that they use in that ad takes me back to when I was younger, then that's a good thing, it makes me feel good about wanting to buy that product," said Andy Wallman, creative director at Knupp & Watson.

But Wallman said that can also work against a product.

"Absolutely. I think you see folks wanted to stay away from products that had Baby Boomer music in their advertising cause they don't want to be associated with middle age, or old people. You know Led Zeppelin -- that's not even my father's music, that's my grandfather's music," Wallman said.

But that's not likely to stop advertisers. At 78 million strong, Boomers are now the largest consumer buying group in the country.

"Baby Boomer music is going to be tied to baby boomer products as long as there's baby boomers," Wallman said. "There's going to be a lot of stuff that you hear on the oldies radio right now that will fade out of memory entirely. But there's going to be a fair amount of it that's going to stay around. I think what it will be is we'll get better compilations musically. I think it's probably true the good stuff will last, the ephemeral stuff will pass."

For an example of how popular the music is, Madison radio station Magic 98's programming "Saturday at the 70s" comfortably ranks No. 1 from 9 a.m. to midnight.

Program director Pat O'Neill said that he started the show as an experiment, thinking it would last a year or two. "Saturday at the 70s" has been on the air for 14 years.