A little 1970's history is in order:
If you wanted to listen to music AM radio was king. They played top 40 relentlessly. I kid you not, you could hear Led Zeppelin followed by The Carpenters followed by The Who followed by Hot Chocolate followed by The Osmond Brothers followed by CW McCall's Convoy...I can still recall Christmas break hearing Band On The Run (Paul McCartney) playing at least every hour right after Time In A Bottle (Jim Croce) on WABC Radio. WNBC was more risque with Imus In The Morning. That was NY City radio. And it was hell!
Now, my older sisters were rebels so they tuned into FM. Now, FM was the abode of black R&B, college stations playing punk/new wave, musak, and AOR Rock which meant you would hear Pat St. John mellow out to the entire album of Abbey Road while smokin a few doobies. Yeah, I'm talking albums that skipped relentlessly. So if Pat St john or Tony Pig were at the john while Side Two skipped for five minutes --so be it! Damn them all to hell, I still can hear "Carry That Weight" skipping relentlessly at the guitar medley...over and over and over and over. What's a little boy to do: Go downstairs and watch Space 1999?
Enter disco. Disco took over all of AM until the only airplay rock had was FM. Everything became disco. Disco nights, Boogie Nights, Boogie Ooggie Ooggie, Boogie Machine, Disco Duck, and Leo "I'm in Dante's Inferno" Sayers!!!
You see, my friend, there were very little options. We had to listen. And down south in the Bible Belt they heard only the Country/Western. And it wasn't the kind you heard at the honky tonk, it was what the big whigs wanted you to hear. And in some places C&W was the devil's music, which left you only Bluegrass Gospel and regular gospel.
The 1970's were HELLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!!! At least for me.
One night in New Orleans, as my friend and I were driving around town, we heard Macho Man on three stations at the same time. I cried...
Great summary! I grew up in the NY Tri-State area, and was a WNBC listener at home when I was younger in my top 40 days. WABC at for the beach, because they reminded you to turn over every 20 minutes.
I did enjoy WPLJ for the album rock - there were some good album stations those days. There was also a terrific jazz station in NY, call letters temporarily forgotte, but I was very unhappy when they changed formats in the late 70s.
To this day, there are some songs I can't tolerate listening to because of the sheer number of times they've been hammered into my brain.
OH my thanks for the background! Convoy-- OMG what a classic piece of crap. I love it.
Very interesting- I am glad I was born in 74 and not really aware of music for most of the decade!
Kinda depends upon where in the south you were. 101.1 FM KLOL in Houston rocked really hard. I almost cried a couple of years ago when I heard that KLOL was converted into a hispanic station.
If you wanted to listen to music AM radio was king. They played top 40 relentlessly. I kid you not, you could hear Led Zeppelin followed by The Carpenters followed by The Who followed by Hot Chocolate followed by The Osmond Brothers followed by CW McCall's Convoy...I can still recall Christmas break hearing Band On The Run (Paul McCartney) playing at least every hour right after Time In A Bottle (Jim Croce) on WABC Radio.
That's the gospel truth. Of course, most modern radio is pretty much the same, which is why I don't listen to radio.
I just realized that the post I'm responding to is over a year old. It's Rzeznikj's fault. I'm going to post it anyway. ;-)