THANKS TO THE WEB, a helluva lot of pop-cult ephemera just keeps reappearing that one might have presumed to have been lost forever (or at least locked up in private collections).
Today’s case in point: Reel Radio, which has assembled hours upon hours of disc-jockey patter (complete with commercials and jingles, but not the songs) from the golden days of Top 40 radio (approximately 1955-80).
A quick search of the site finds several long clips from Seattle stations KOL, KING-AM, and especially KJR.
This particular promo tape of KJR-AM top-40 radio jingles from my teens proves that (1) commercial radio was just as corporate and mercenary then as it it is now, and (2) it had a helluva lot more classic-showbiz energy and entertainment value back then.
It was loud, brassy, tinny, and fun. Bigtime radio doesn’t have much room for real fun these days, especially with all the surly bad-boy “attitude” shock jocks and right-wing talk firebrands blathering about.
Yet it’s also easy to discern how this venerable format burned out. Listening to one of these air-check tapes for ten minutes or longer can be a challenge of endurance (the stations’ live sound, as padded out by the songs, was a bit more pleasant). And as those pesky boomers kept aging, Top 40 became increasingly sneered at as teenybopper crap, to the point where even teens didn’t like it anymore.
But nowadays, these strong personalities and their nonstop-party atmosphere are so easily missed. So is their treatment of teenagers and young adults as smart, respectable citizens worthy of being pandered to in this way.
NEXT: A new book treats Las Vegas as a symbol of everything gaudy, corrupt, and crazy about America. And it wasn’t even written by the French.
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