Television has completely stolen movies' mojo to the point that movies are now a backwater. That's something that seemed impossible 30 years ago.

Tarantino makes a good point though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V5HddLMtNs

We lose a lot of rights when we look the other way when it doesn't affect our lives or it isn't a cause we agree with.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Tarantino makes a good point though:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0V5HddLMtNs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gzaZ-Xmhu4

A promotional videotape for the Lite FM, in which the line "and we never play dance music or rap" is read over "Sweet Dreams" by Eurythmics.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Ah, the dog days of summer. They bring back memories of days spent at the beach, of long hours driving on the interstate to family vacations, of cruising aimlessly down Main Street. For many, those memories are forever linked with listening to the radio.

And if you’re a Baby Boomer, it was probably Top 40 radio that served as the soundtrack for your summer memories. In Chicago, that meant WLS or WCFL, where in the same hour you might hear the Beatles’ “She Loves You,” Louis Armstrong’s “Hello, Dolly!” the Supremes’ “Baby Love” and Dean Martin’s “Everybody Loves Somebody.” Or, if you’re a bit younger, it might have been the Captain and Tennille, Queen, Blondie and Kenny Rogers.

Top 40 meant variety. If it was a hit, Top 40 played it.

Sadly, Top 40 as we once knew it no longer exists in Chicago.

When WYTZ-FM (“Z-95”) dropped Top 40 nearly two years ago to simulcast WLS-AM’s talk programming as WLS-FM, it left WBBM-FM 96.3 (“B-96”) as Chicago’s lone Top 40 outlet. But while WBBM-FM is highly successful and is tied with WUSN-FM for honors as the city’s third most-listened-to station, “variety” isn’t a word that comes to mind when listening to it.

What you’ll hear on it is rap (Cypress Hill, Kriss Kross), contemporary rhythm and blues (En Vogue, Tony! Toni! Tone!), dance music (Jade), reggae (UB40) and pop/R&B (Michael Jackson). What you won’t hear on it is anything that comes close to guitar-driven rock ‘n’ roll.

As with many Top 40 radio stations across the country, WBBM-FM has thrived by playing dance-oriented music that appeals to those in their teens and early 20s. Understandably, they see no reason to apologize for it.

“Our core audience likes dance music, not rock music,” said WBBM-FM program director Todd Cavanagh. “We’re still a Top 40 station, but the definition of what Top 40 is has changed with the times.”

By default, “adult contemporary” radio has become the format that now plays the most variety.

“Adult contemporary has become Top 40 radio,” said Barry James, program director of WTMX-FM 101.9, one of the city’s four primary adult contemporary outlets. “We do what Top 40 doesn’t do anymore.”

That’s not to say that adult contemporary plays everything. As its call letters might suggest, WLIT-FM 93.9 is on the “lite” end of the spectrum and plays little current music. WTMX is more upbeat, but the hits it plays tend to be from a year ago. WPNT-FM 100.3 (“FM 100”) and suburban-based WYSY-FM 107.9 (“Y-108”)-with their mix of current songs by Taylor Dayne, Billy Joel, INXS, Tears for Fears and Soul Asylum-come closest to the variety of vintage Top 40.

But even those stations’ programmers admit that they can’t be all things to all listeners.

“Today, the listener functions as his own program director,” said WPNT program director Michael Spears. “You have the button that changes stations, and might go from country to adult contemporary to dance music, all depending on your mood. In the ’90s there are many more choices, and the generalist stations don’t do as well.”

“At the height of Top 40’s popularity, there were really only about nine radio stations in Chicago,” said WLIT programmer Mark Edwards. “Now we have something like 50. With that many choices, there’s a lot more `grazing’ going on by listeners. People don’t stick with any one radio station all day long.”

Here’s a novel if perhaps naive speculation: If a radio station were to take a chance and combine music by New Order with Janet Jackson, John Mellencamp, Garth Brooks and Ice Cube, maybe listeners would stop grazing.

It’s just a thought.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Lol "B96 sounds too black, it can't be Top 40!"

And yeah, until Mancow jumped to Q101, Q101 had a lot more in common with the Mix or that weird Lilith Fair phase of the Loop than with the stations that were playing AC/DC. There's a reason Muller got a lot of mileage out of calling it "Queer 101"

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Tribune column from that glorious period in the mid-'90s when Chicago didn't have a top 40 station.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/1993/08/ ... 0-variety/



This was published August 31, 1993 and it'd be another 5+ years before 92.7 Kiss FM signed on and brought top 40 back (despite however B96 still reported).

It's interesting that the Mix and Q101 were more similar than different for a while there. I don't think their paths really diverged until Q101 brought Mancow in.

I got a kick out of the bolded section as well. That program director, like all of us, had absolutely no idea what was coming.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Oh, yeah, that line stood out to me, too. I still remember "Jack FM" and the idea of competing with an iPod by offering an iPod with commercial breaks. I mean, it did work for a while up until it didn't work at all.

I am not a legal expert, how many times do I have to say it?

Jack FM still exists in more rural areas of the country. It's honestly not bad compared to the rest of small market radio.

Oh, yeah, that line stood out to me, too. I still remember "Jack FM" and the idea of competing with an iPod by offering an iPod with commercial breaks. I mean, it did work for a while up until it didn't work at all.

I wasn't listening at the time but it's so weird that the Loop did not go from Dahl and Brandmeier to Classic Rock That Rocks without a brief detour into playing Alanis Morissette and Blues Traveler. If I have my history right, they only gave up the weird Lilith Fair phase because a merger put them into a cluster with FM100 and it became redundant.

That lineup of Brandmeier, Stern, Matthews and Dahl was probably the best lineup at a single station in the history of radio. You could turn the radio on at any time between 5 am and 10 pm for top end entertainment. Then, I think they threw in Eddie Schwartz for some ironic comedy and best of late nights. It was fantastic stuff.

According to Wikipedia, Brandmeier was actually still there through the Lilith Fair phase and was let go when the Loop was sold to Bonneville who flipped it to classic rock. The rest of the old Loop comedy talk format fronted by Matthews moved back to AM 1000 after the first failure of sports talk there (Dahl was gone to WCKG, Meier was gone to WLS) until that got sold to Disney which flipped to ESPN Radio and launched Kev. I think I remember Roeper hosting a show on that last pre-sports version of AM 1000 also?

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

That sounds about right. That whole period of the Loop is so convoluted.

I wish I had more Loop airchecks besides Buzz's Saturday-when-the-Bulls-don't-play show. There's surprisingly little out there for those of us who missed it.

That lineup of Brandmeier, Stern, Matthews and Dahl was probably the best lineup at a single station in the history of radio. You could turn the radio on at any time between 5 am and 10 pm for top end entertainment. Then, I think they threw in Eddie Schwartz for some ironic comedy and best of late nights. It was fantastic stuff.

The victims are the American People and the Republic itself.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

Kevin's version of Eddie had Dahl in stitches

The victims are the American People and the Republic itself.

I bought this book for my brother. He said it was very good. I am looking forward to starting it this week.

The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.

I thought Stern wasn't on 1000 that long and was kind of a bust there. I know at some point he got exiled to WJJD, which is sort of the forgotten talk station--I can't find any ephemera online from them after they dropped country.

Finished that book this weekend. Very good read.

The part that touched on the mid 90s-Steve & Garry breakup-launch of WMVP on the AM part was interesting in particular. Evergreen bought 103.5 The Blaze with the extent of making it a mainstream rock station and essentially moving the FM Loop music there as Rock 103.5 while the comedy talk of the AM Loop moved to 97.9 and 1000 went sports. I guess I never really realized that Rock 103.5 was supposed to be the direct heir apparent to the FM Loop because of the different branding and younger jocks they used, especially with Mancow going after Dahl, Matthews and Brandmeier on the air. Guys like Stroud and Skafish who had played music on the Loop kind of got lost in the shuffle and Stroud wound up on WCKG while Skafish wound up on Q101 and then I think XRT?

But WMVP bombed so badly as a sports station that they aborted it in '96 and moved the Loop talk back to 1000 (even though they kept the call letters WMVP and IIRC just went by "AM 1000" on air), while 97.9 went with Alanis and Jewel until it got sold a year later. By then 103.5 had evolved to almost all new/hard rock and WCKG had Stern and Dahl and was moving towards talk, so there was an opening for classic rock and that's where we basically got the next 21 years of the Loop until Jesus bought it out.