I have wanted to post about this subject for a while now, but somehow never got around to it. That is until the emails between my dear friend Jen and I seemed to escalate. We share a lot of emails that begin with the words, "Gosh, do you remember this?" or "Holy crap! I haven't heard this one in a while!"
I'm talking about music. Mostly 80's music. Sure you hear some songs being played on the radio once in a while, but I'm not talking about those. I'm talking about the little gems that NOBODY plays anymore. I'm talking about one-hit wonders. I'm talking about the songs that were lesser known by popular artists. I'm talking about songs that you almost don't remember at all.
When I was a young girl, all we had was radio. Sure we had TV, but when we would sit in our rooms just being girls, the radio was on. We got to buy a cassette tape every once in while if we could convince mom to let us get one. Something I *do* remember is sitting by the radio with a blank cassette tape and listening to "Rick Dees Weekly Top 40" on the weekends. When a song that I liked came on, I recorded it off.the.radio. WOW. How times have changed. Now if we like a song, we go to itunes and download it. Then we transfer it to our ipod. If we want to burn to a CD, we create a playlist and hit a button. It's as easy as that. And let's talk about sound quality too. The music is crystal clear. Hearing music taped from the radio allows for very poor quality. But back then, we thought we were so cool!
It seems like there was more of a variety on the radio back then too. Now, we just hear the same songs over and over again. What's sad is that I wouldn't want to buy the songs/CDs that I hear on the radio because I get so sick of hearing them. Maybe we heard better music because it was the 80s and pop music was gaining popularity back then. Or maybe we heard better music because there wasn't all the "red tape" like there is now. In any case, radio was our life.
As for TV, this show was very popular in our house on Friday nights if we were lucky enough to stay up after my mom finished watching "Dallas" and "Falcon Crest". This was also something that we watched on TBS. In fact, I remember the day that we got cable and there were more than 13 channels on our TV!
I'm happy to say that radio is still an important part of my life. There's a lot of crap out there, but there's a lot of good stuff too. You just have to pick your battles. ;)
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2 comments:
I feel so primitive, without even a working car radio!
And it's so sad that kids will no longer grow up developing the skills to recognize songs at the first chord and speed to the boom box to push play and record down at the same time... or learn to rig wire antennae all over their room to pick up the most stubborn signal... or where to move that during different times of day to ensure constant, clear, quality sound.
Or being able to just KNOW when the song you've been waiting for was going to come on, right after that commercial, and timing it just right to not miss the intro, but not record the end of the ad.
I used to throw such temper tantrums when I missed recording a song by mere minutes.
I hate the new, standard "top 10 playlists" that every station plays now. Even satellite radio does it. I can go into the gym at the same time every day, and unless someone has changed the station, the same songs are always on rotation. It's sad.
*sigh* So much music... so little provided.
OMG, i so forgot about friday night videos. Yes, I too would sit for hours glued to the radio to record my fav song, anything by duran duran. I never listen to the pop stations, only the stations that plays 70s-90s.
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