Why Aren't You Listening To Top 40 Today?

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Comment by Andrew Sanchez on January 24, 2009 at 8:59am

The first "alternative" music I ever heard was Suicidal Tendencies. Isaac Ray let me borrow the cassette when we were in 7th grade in New Orleans (circa 84). I thought it was the craziest shit I ever heard. From that point on, my musical inclinations were completely changed. I was kind of priveleged living in New Orleans. We had WTUL, the Tulane station, and it played everything from the Smiths and the Cure to the Dead kennedys, Clash and REM. And, my friend's parents rented out part of their house to a guy that worked for McAllister Auditorium. He gave us free passes to see shows. By the time I was in 9th grade I got to see PiL, REM, U2, Oingo Boingo, Meat Puppets, Wall of Voodoo and pretty much any college radio band that came to town. Today, all of those bands and that music seems to me like mainstream pop. Moving to Indiana in the mid 80s was a huge shock. It was pretty much devoid of any underground music outlet. That's when I really discovered punk. I have to hand it to Tony at Second Time Around. He ordered me the 1st 2 Stooges albums and it just exploded from there. Over 20 years later and I'm still gobbling up records and CDs. I get accused constantly of being closed minded to music (and by that I mean Top 40 shit for the past 30 years). But my records span the genres and eras from the 20s to modern day. Within that there's everything from the Kinks to Thee Mighty Caesars, Jimmie Rodgers to Hank Williams, Cab Calloway to the J5, The Carter Family to Conway Twitty, Xavier Cugat to Los Brincos, Beatles to Beck and on and on and on. Now when's the last time a lover of modern radio actually spun a tune from, say, Kitty Wells and realized how significant, influential, and GREAT it really is? But, hey, it can't touch Faith Hill, right?

Comment by Mark on January 22, 2009 at 7:45pm

My life up to a few years ago was strictly christian "pop" music. Having been raised in a very christian home, that's all I was exposed to.

When I started 9th grade, I started going to a performing and fine arts center... not your typical high school. I was exposed to so many things i had never experienced. one of them was very good quality music. Stuff like Margot and the Nuclear so and so's, bright eyes, and Death Cab for Cutie. I started to imerse myself in music that dug into you instead of just scraping the surface. And now I am constantly finding new music in which I can identify with.

Not that all christian music is shallow, alot of it is rather fantastic. however, it was very eye-opening to see another side of music.

Comment by Rick Wilkerson on January 13, 2009 at 11:42am

Growing up in Terre Haute in the late '60's, we had two excellent AM Top 40 stations, WTHI 1480 and WBOW 1230. WTHI strayed into more experimental territory as the underdog and being influenced by some of the college types who worked there. They started a show called "Sunday Subway" and played all sorts of underground stuff of the times.

Then as a Junior Achievement kid I got to be in WBOW's sponsored "company" which meant we hung out in the studios every week, annoying the employees mostly. They let us rummage thru the "rejects" in the music library and listen to them. That's how I discovered the Stooges "Fun House" and Amon Duul 2 "Carnival in Babylon", along with records by Wishbone Ash and other obscurities.

After that, there was no going back.

Comment by Lee Riemenschneider on November 14, 2008 at 4:20pm

I made some friends in middle school who were into King Crimson and Genesis (mostly due to their older siblings in college). One friend in high school was into the Clash, but I didn't discover hard core until college. I think Back from Samoa or The Blasting Concept was my first hard core purchase.
Unfortunately, I didn't buy too many, because I was hanging out at Wendy and Ken's apartment; Ken was always playing Black Flag, Husker Du or D.O.A, so I didn't feel a huge need to own my own copies.

Comment by PJ Christie on October 23, 2008 at 1:41pm

I loved music from day one and was constantly spinning my dad's records like Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, and lots of Beatles and Stones. I was very into the sound of records from my dad's era. Also he and a lot of his friends were playing acoustic guitars at the impromptu parties he would throw at his bachelor pad.

At some point I went to stay with my mom where she had this house in the country and I had my own radio for the first time. I was listening to a lot of top 40 in maybe 1980 or something. Most of it I knew was bad but it helped me find music that was my own, like the pop and new wave stuff that would strangely find it's way, so by this time it was still driven by singles on the radio.

MTV, Friday Night Videos, and Video Jukebox connected me to images of music for the first time so after that most of what I would respond to was equal parts music and style. Whip It, Here Comes the Rain, Let's Go Crazy, Rock the Casbah, still very image oriented.

Then I loved heavy metal. Not glam, not hard rock. I was liking Ozzy, Sabbath, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest. They had a heavy image but the music was so fringe in 1985 - 87 that none of the people at my school were liking it.

Then by the time Ozzy was actually getting popular it was thrash. Then when Metallica was popular it was punk. Then when punk got popular I was into everything again with no boundaries. But I had definitely left Top 40 behind once I got interested in the image and lifestyle of music as much as what Casey Kasem said was hot. My dad used to joke that the song I was into was number 26, 14, and 8. I get that now.

The answer is because it all sounds so fake and manufactured, like it is more about style than substance, and the production obscures any hope of listening long enough to decide whether something is good or not. Sound, lyrics, musicianship, and style in that order is the way I like it. Style and sound is all I hear in top 40, so it leaves out the best parts.

Give me Jim Croce over Britney Spears.

Comment by Mike Emmett on June 27, 2008 at 11:35pm

I was lucky in a lot of ways to be the youngest of nine kids, coming into my own in the '70's and '80s' where my brothers were always playing records in their basement bedroom. I remember my brother's "pad" in the basement where he had painted the cover of Aladinsane on the wall and played among other things lots of Bowie and the Stooges, but also some stuff I grew to despise later. Another Brother gave me "The Wild, The Innocent and the E Street Shuffle" and "This Years Model" for Christmas in eighth grade.
But my real introduction came when Kooch, Mike O and I started venturing down to the trestle in Broad Ripple around 1985 or so. We met all sorts of people who turned us on to a whole new world of music. I think "New Day Rising" was the first record I bought that summer.

Comment by CraiGrrr on June 26, 2008 at 7:34pm

Aside from being a jazz head and Zappa fanatic, which literally left you zero radio choice for 22 hours a day before community radio, I have two words for you in answer to the question that is this group.
Rhino Records.

Comment by Kyle Barnett on June 26, 2008 at 12:36pm

For me, it was about sounds as much as songs. Both, really. I can't point to any one event, but several:

My mother's records: "Meet the Beatles," primarily. Listened to it endlessly.

With my Dad, I saw a report on the Sex Pistols' U.S. tour with a report on television. Predictably, my Dad's negative reaction got me interested. A friend got the record shortly after, from a garage sale in which a DJ's mom was selling all his records! That's how I heard the Rolling Stones' "Exile on Main Street" as well.

Surprises from Indianapolis radio: I heard bubblegum punk hit "Ca Plane Pour Moi" by Plastic Bertrand on WNDE-AM! It seemed to blast out of my parents' car speakers! I also heard Elvis Costello's "Watching the Detectives" and The Police's "Roxanne," neither of which sounded like Kansas at all.

Television was important, with glimpses of something different on Saturday Night Live, Night Flight (particularly "New Wave Theatre"), and later, MTV. Hard to overstate the importance of this amidst stifling radio options.

A tape from a friend's older brother, with a lot of Velvet Underground stuff.

Around the same time, when I heard X (that first record scared me almost as much as that Sex Pistols record), the Dream Syndicate, and later, R.E.M. That's when it really sunk in that you could be from the U.S. and play interesting music (before that, I thought you had to be from the U.K.).

When I started discovering Indianapolis bands, that was huge. That's another story.

Comment by Joey Welch on June 13, 2008 at 11:31am

Then DEVO set me free!!!

Comment by Joey Welch on June 13, 2008 at 11:30am

1977 - 1982

I was lost in a sea of people listening to Boston, Van Halen, Molly Hatchet, Skynyrd (sp?) etc and so on--Bad Company and all the other "butt rock"-T-top, halter/tube-top rock (all the Jack Daniels-soaked freedom rockers floating down the WNAP White River Raft Race, shouting out their mating call: "Wooooooooyeah! Fuckin A!!!!" (Oh, I must mention "The Nuge", if he's not already implied).

They were all suckin on bongs taller than me, poppin 'ludes and tellin their Moms to fuck off (how bravely defiant!). It was very depressing.

Then my brother went to school in Denver and saw the police on their second american tour and came home with Outlandos and Regatta. That was bad-ass. He also had the English Beat and then I got into the Specials first release.

Then my friend Steve Schick slipped me a tape of the Germs. (Now at this point I didn't know d'Arby Crash was just as depressing and self-destructive as all the other sad stories-- all the "punks" I knew rejected self destruction and thought it was a pathetic way to rebel. That made a hell of a lot of sense to me).

Then I got TSOL's first record, then Sandinista came out and I got London Calling, Give 'em Enough Rope as well.

I remember the Clash at that time was considerd dangerous. There was a TV special hosted by Barbara Walters examining the dangers of the punk rock counter culture. She warned parents of the dangers...

Then I'd hear other kids playing "Heard it from a friend who heard it from a friend who heard it from..." and I was profoundly perplexed, if not disgusted...

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