Since I was busy doing things like watching Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street during this time, my information is strictly second-hand, but radio was a lot different in the late 60’s and early 70’s than it is now. For one thing, AM radio, as a source of music, was still strong. Typically, there would be at least a couple AM stations with a Top 40 format where you lived that would play everything from the Stones to Frank Sinatra (to get an idea on what it was like, listen to this web site). However, many listeners disliked AM Top 40 radio because they frequently had too many commercials, too many acts like the 1910 Fruitgum Company and Bobby Goldsboro getting regular airplay, and too many of their favorite songs (e.g., the Doors’ “Light My Fire”) hacked up so they wouldn’t run more than three minutes. Thus, as an “alternative” to this, free-form rock stations started popping up on the FM band (which, at the time, was cheaper because fewer people had FM radios). There, they played the full-length versions of songs, every cut off an album (not just the one designated as the “hit single”), and artists who were considered too “edgy” for the Top 40. (If you’ve ever seen the early SNL sketch that featured Dan Ackroyd as a DJ handling shifts on an AM station and an FM station at the same time, you’ll get some idea of what the dichotomy between AM Top 40 and FM album rock was like.)
Second, nobody played the Velvet Underground. They were regarded as little more than cult favorites at best and never really got any airplay outside of a few experimental college stations.
No way. The 80s was one of the most fruitful decades ever for music. You just couldn’t hear it on the radio. You had to learn about stuff from reading zines like Flipside and Maximumrocknroll, or Creem or by looking for cool labels like Bomp or Touch and Go, and if you were lucky, you lived near a college with a radio station (I had WPSU) with underground rock shows. And then there was the USA networks’ “Night Flight” and radio 1990, New Wave Theater, and show’s on MTV like “The Cutting Edge” hosted by the guy from The Fleshtones. Even Mtv’s 120 minutes was good for the first few years. Then in the late 80s early 90s, when underground rock was getting big, the media repackaged it, pasturized and homoginized it and turned it in to something bland and unexciting so it would appeal to the masses of people who wouldn’t know rock and roll if it bit 'em in the ass.
This just happened recently: 60s inspired garage punk was becoming pretty huge in the underground, the media took note, and now you have faux garage bands like White Stripes and Jet being played every hour on the radio, while the true artists of the genre like Billy Childish or The Cynics are destined for obscurity.
Everything that is popular now… nu metal, mallpunk, hip hop, goth, rap metal… was being done in the late 70s early 80s. Hell, there were a hundered bands who sounded like Nirvana when Kurt Cobain was in diapers.
I’m just going to go ahead and second what NDP said. It sounds like we’re at the same level of geezerness. My specific pop culture memories also lean towards the latter part of that decade. You would very occasionally hear a New Wave song on the radio… The B-52’s and Blondie for example, but that was the exception. The “real cheesy 80’s stuff” I mentioned in my previous post was the kind of thing you would hear every place that was pretending to be hip… BUT, you’re right, “classic rock” was also very prevalent during those days. NDP is correct in saying that you would never hear The Velvet Underground, The Stooges or even Black Sabbath on regular radio… but you could certainly hear “Stairway to Heaven”, “Light My Fire”, “Sympathy For the Devil”, and the shortened radio version of " In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" several times a day. In fact, those classic rock stations never seemed to play any other songs by those bands. It was as if Led Zeppelin had come into existence… recorded “Led Zeppelin IV”… and disbanded the next day. Okay, that may be a tad extreme, but literally, they would play maybe 5 different songs by those bands, tops. What also got my goat at the time (and what ended up pushing me in the direction of Punk and New Wave) was the attitude of the older “classic rock” music fans, who felt that they owned the music, and they were only allowing us to participate in their scene because we were too worthless and uncool to have any music of our own… and to their minds, Punk and New Wave music totally confirmed that opinion. I still relish the memory of those people’s reaction to Devo’s version of “Satisfaction”. They took it as quite a slap in the face.
Well, that was pretty longwinded… but to also address Trigonal Planar’s question… I grew up in Canada, and I guess New Wave was slightly more popular here than in the States. I suspect that it was due to the fact that we were a bit more open to music coming out of the UK.
I don’t know. Certainly by the time I was 17 (1982) I was aware that popular music had gone through a couple of different eras before then, and even before I was born. I probably could have given you a brief summary of American popular music from the dawn of rock and roll to the present day. These kids’ horizons essentially extended to 1995 and no further.
I’ve got The Very Best of New Wave Theatre Vols. 1 & 2. They’re brilliant! 45 Grave, The Plugz, The Surf Punks, Suburban Lawns, Fear… What a line up! I’m going to have to find the box they’re in.
A friend of mine has a bootleg copy of URGH! A Music War. I’m going to have to try to find that one.
Mr. Mike’s Mondo Video (which I have ) has Sid Vicious and Klaus Nomi.
Oh man, does it ever. The Alleycats, Dead Kennedys Spizz, Wall Of Voodoo, The Alleycats…“Nothing Means Nothing Anymore” is one of my favorite songs ever. And Skafish…now THAT was one wacked out motherfucker. I have his album, and it’s pretty good, but nothing on it came close to “Sign Of The Cross”.
The 80s was a time of good compilation albums…The soundracks to Urgh and Repo Man, Let Them Eat Jelly Beans, Not So Quiet On The Western Front, The Blasting Concept, Hell Comes To Your House…They just don’t make comps like they used to.
I’ve done my part to fight musical ignorance by 20-somethings.
I let one of my co-workers (20-something, alt-rock guy), borrow my Talking HeadsThe Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads (double live album, 1982) CD. I had to harass him for weeks to get it back! He couldn’t stop talking about how good it was.
Well, that goes without saying! I meant that nothing on Skafish’s album came close to his song on Urgh.
The Fleshtones RULE! Check out their newest album Do You Swing. It ranks up there with the old stuff like Hexbreaker and Roman Gods…not that the Fleshtones ever made a bad record or anything…
There’s also a new side project by some guys from the Fleshtones and The Dictators but I forget what the name of the band is. I haven’t heard it yet, but I’m sure it kicks some major ass.
Speaking of Urgh…I was sitting in a McDonalds one time a few years back, when 999’s “Homicide” came on the Muzak system. I almost choked on my McMuffin!
I got “Do You Swing?”, and you’re right… it’s great. You’re right about Skafish as well.
Thanks for giving me the heads up on The Flestones/Dictators side project. Apparently its called The Master Plan. Their album is “Colossus of Destiny”… I guess that will have to be the next thing I pick up.
I’m smack dab in the midst of my twenties (literally - I’m 25) & I’m a big fan of New Wave, amongst other genres. New Wave isn’t the music of “my generation”, per se - I think that title falls to grunge - but I love it nonetheless.
And yes, one of the 9th graders whom I was observing two semesters ago came in wearing a Nirvana t-shirt. Man, did I feel ancient.
) has Sid Vicious and Klaus Nomi.