I was up late last night talking with a friend from work. We drank a little and talked about this and that and some how we started talking about cassette tapes. She mentioned that somewhere she has tapes of songs that she taped off the radio and that listening to those tapes now is like being in a time machine because they evoke a place and time where she had the time and the energy and the interest to create these tapes.
She's not alone in that tape collage making, I did it too. I don't recall if my friends we into taping tunes from the radio, but I know early on in my music fan days it was something that I did.
Now let me be clear here, I wasn't above buying music, I just didn't have the money to spend on lunch on a day to day basis, let alone feed a music habit like I was developing. Also this time period, the late 80's was the golden age of the Filler Album. I know that there has always been filler, but once upon a time the filler were covers of rock classics, rocked out blues tunes and that kind of stuff. In the 80's album filler was a just that filler tunes.
Anyway I had these tape comps, stuff from the radio, top 40 tunes that I liked, top 40 tunes that for some reason reached out to me enough that I would sit in my dirt pit of a bed room with my cheap stereo waiting for a song that I dug to come on so that I could start the tape rolling.
This was also the era of the duel cassette deck where you could crudely edit these songs to rid yourself of the DJ's patter and the ads that were part of listening to the radio.
Now I must confess a few sins here. I didn't listen to classic rock radio, I didn't listen to the oldies station, I didn't listen to the local hard rock station or even the college station, and therefor I missed out on hearing a lot of stuff that I now listen to often these days. I never hear: ACDC, Bo Diddly, BOC, The Cramps, or much else beyond the top 40. The truth is that most of those stations played a lot of stuff that bored me.
However, thinking back there was a lot more interesting tunes on top 40 radio. Weekly play lists ran about 25 to 30 songs that were in rotation with each station trying to grab listeners from each other. The main why that game was played was to give a new tune a shot before the other station did. There were a lot more chances taken by program directors in that quest for market share and ad revenue.
So what happened? Why can't most music fans stand to listen to the radio today? What happened to all that risk taking at stations?
The biggest thing that happened to change radio was when President Bill Clinton signed the Telecom act of 1996, which I like to refer to as Rock and Rolls Death Warrant. This along with Al Gore's PMRC hearing in the late '80s have done more to kill off rock music than any other events of the last 50 years. That's a whole other rant that I am not ready to go into.
The telecom act allowed companies to own more stations in a given market and that allowed Clear Channel Communications (who now own 1200 stations across the USA) and Infinity Broadcasting (Disney) to gobble up stations and kill any competition for listeners. This meant that there was no incentive to take risks with new tunes by untested bands. There was also the growth of Independent Promoters who are your basic 3rd party bag men. These scum bags basically lobby radio conglomerates (read pay off) to play what ever the major labels are shoveling. All of this has lead to radio becoming a wasteland of 12 tunes a week playlists that are designed to reach out to the casual music listener...
After reading Sarah Vowlle's Radio On! late in 2003, I tired to keep my own radio diary, It lasted 6 weeks and mostly chronicled my listening to NPR and my distaste for what I was hearing on commercial radio. I can't listen to most of these stations for more than 10 minutes with out getting bored to tears. The music isn't as good, or fun or interesting. There are too many commercials and the DJs have become overly sex obsessed chatter boxes of crudeness.
The changes in technology has changed everything as well. The ability to buy over the net song by song and burn them onto a CD makes the old duel cassette a dinosaur. The lap top that I am typing this on make it so easy to create a comp of exactly what I want, allows me to move the order of tracks around and there is no cueing, no start and stop, easily adjusted volume levels. You can even create and print our your own tray cards and cover art. It's all there, it's all so easy that even your mother could do it. How special is that?
OK.... Notes...............
1: I think that I am going to send off this entry as my next Don't Get Me Started Column for Rockfiend .
2:I don't really miss that cassette tape thing that much. i still use them and I still have several old ones, mostly that I created around 1993 when I was at Michigan State University. I still have 3 tapes worth of stuff that I was into then. I took these tapes to work with me and never taped over them.
3: I also was thinking of the tapes themselves. They went from very plain and ugly grey and black tapes to colorful new wave ones, before settling into the classy tinted clear ones that you can find at Target. I think I still have a few of the new wave ones kicking around here that have been used and reused over and over.
4: so the other thing that I didn't talk about in this entry was the accent of Modern Rock Radio, the Death of College Radio and the birth of net radio. I didn't talk about the realities of regional hit bands and why that doesn't occur any more. Those are all topics for other rants.
5: here are some of the tunes from those days that I used to love... and the ones with *'s next to them are ones that I still dig....
INXS: I Was Standing*
Starship: Nothing's gonna stop us now
Don Henely: Boys of Summer*
Icehouse: Electric Blue*
Warrant: Heaven
E'nff Z'nuff: Fly High Michele*
Aisa: Heat of the Moment
Cheap Trick: Ghost town
The Bangles: Eternal Flame
Easterhouse: Come out Fighting
Motely Crew: Kick Start My Heart
Guns'n'Roses: Sweet Child 'o mine
Huey Lewis & The News: Heart of Rock and Roll
Living Color: Cult of Personality
take your best shots.......
She's not alone in that tape collage making, I did it too. I don't recall if my friends we into taping tunes from the radio, but I know early on in my music fan days it was something that I did.
Now let me be clear here, I wasn't above buying music, I just didn't have the money to spend on lunch on a day to day basis, let alone feed a music habit like I was developing. Also this time period, the late 80's was the golden age of the Filler Album. I know that there has always been filler, but once upon a time the filler were covers of rock classics, rocked out blues tunes and that kind of stuff. In the 80's album filler was a just that filler tunes.
Anyway I had these tape comps, stuff from the radio, top 40 tunes that I liked, top 40 tunes that for some reason reached out to me enough that I would sit in my dirt pit of a bed room with my cheap stereo waiting for a song that I dug to come on so that I could start the tape rolling.
This was also the era of the duel cassette deck where you could crudely edit these songs to rid yourself of the DJ's patter and the ads that were part of listening to the radio.
Now I must confess a few sins here. I didn't listen to classic rock radio, I didn't listen to the oldies station, I didn't listen to the local hard rock station or even the college station, and therefor I missed out on hearing a lot of stuff that I now listen to often these days. I never hear: ACDC, Bo Diddly, BOC, The Cramps, or much else beyond the top 40. The truth is that most of those stations played a lot of stuff that bored me.
However, thinking back there was a lot more interesting tunes on top 40 radio. Weekly play lists ran about 25 to 30 songs that were in rotation with each station trying to grab listeners from each other. The main why that game was played was to give a new tune a shot before the other station did. There were a lot more chances taken by program directors in that quest for market share and ad revenue.
So what happened? Why can't most music fans stand to listen to the radio today? What happened to all that risk taking at stations?
The biggest thing that happened to change radio was when President Bill Clinton signed the Telecom act of 1996, which I like to refer to as Rock and Rolls Death Warrant. This along with Al Gore's PMRC hearing in the late '80s have done more to kill off rock music than any other events of the last 50 years. That's a whole other rant that I am not ready to go into.
The telecom act allowed companies to own more stations in a given market and that allowed Clear Channel Communications (who now own 1200 stations across the USA) and Infinity Broadcasting (Disney) to gobble up stations and kill any competition for listeners. This meant that there was no incentive to take risks with new tunes by untested bands. There was also the growth of Independent Promoters who are your basic 3rd party bag men. These scum bags basically lobby radio conglomerates (read pay off) to play what ever the major labels are shoveling. All of this has lead to radio becoming a wasteland of 12 tunes a week playlists that are designed to reach out to the casual music listener...
After reading Sarah Vowlle's Radio On! late in 2003, I tired to keep my own radio diary, It lasted 6 weeks and mostly chronicled my listening to NPR and my distaste for what I was hearing on commercial radio. I can't listen to most of these stations for more than 10 minutes with out getting bored to tears. The music isn't as good, or fun or interesting. There are too many commercials and the DJs have become overly sex obsessed chatter boxes of crudeness.
The changes in technology has changed everything as well. The ability to buy over the net song by song and burn them onto a CD makes the old duel cassette a dinosaur. The lap top that I am typing this on make it so easy to create a comp of exactly what I want, allows me to move the order of tracks around and there is no cueing, no start and stop, easily adjusted volume levels. You can even create and print our your own tray cards and cover art. It's all there, it's all so easy that even your mother could do it. How special is that?
OK.... Notes...............
1: I think that I am going to send off this entry as my next Don't Get Me Started Column for Rockfiend .
2:I don't really miss that cassette tape thing that much. i still use them and I still have several old ones, mostly that I created around 1993 when I was at Michigan State University. I still have 3 tapes worth of stuff that I was into then. I took these tapes to work with me and never taped over them.
3: I also was thinking of the tapes themselves. They went from very plain and ugly grey and black tapes to colorful new wave ones, before settling into the classy tinted clear ones that you can find at Target. I think I still have a few of the new wave ones kicking around here that have been used and reused over and over.
4: so the other thing that I didn't talk about in this entry was the accent of Modern Rock Radio, the Death of College Radio and the birth of net radio. I didn't talk about the realities of regional hit bands and why that doesn't occur any more. Those are all topics for other rants.
5: here are some of the tunes from those days that I used to love... and the ones with *'s next to them are ones that I still dig....
INXS: I Was Standing*
Starship: Nothing's gonna stop us now
Don Henely: Boys of Summer*
Icehouse: Electric Blue*
Warrant: Heaven
E'nff Z'nuff: Fly High Michele*
Aisa: Heat of the Moment
Cheap Trick: Ghost town
The Bangles: Eternal Flame
Easterhouse: Come out Fighting
Motely Crew: Kick Start My Heart
Guns'n'Roses: Sweet Child 'o mine
Huey Lewis & The News: Heart of Rock and Roll
Living Color: Cult of Personality
take your best shots.......
nordicgoddess:
I can't believe you still don't dig Huey Lewis. I predict a huge second coming of Huey Lewis. Mark my words.