Whither 1980?

(I found this image here.)

Every year on the week of my birth (my birthday's tomorrow), I spend a show playing music from a certain year in my life.  I started, way back when I began doing the show, with the year of my birth, 1968.  Years have passed.  Hairs have greyed.  Eyesight has dimmed.  & I have reached the year 1980.

There is something I always feel like saying when I do these shows, & it's this: in no wise is this music I was actually listening to in 1980.  I was twelve years old, I had barely grasped the concept of albums.  Most of the music I loved, with the exception of the Beatles, was stuff I heard on the radio, & my brain was pretty uncritical.  My family loved & listened to "classic rock," so that was the music that surrounded me.  I was pretty obsessed with the Beatles, though, & I think I had taped several of their albums from the radio, & had copies on cassette, especially the Red & Blue singles collections.

My real musical awakening would happen in high school, when I had a car to go to record stores & money to buy records.  That started, interestingly enough, with musicians you'll hear on today's show, but with whom I wouldn't start becoming obsessed with until high school.

So!  All this great music from 1980, & I had almost no access to it.  The music I did have access to, from the radio, I would later find to be tiresome & outright awful.  To me, of course.  Many people loved it - like members of my family who, to this day, probably enjoy it when it comes on the classic rock radio they still tune in to.  They would most probably not recognize most of what I'll play on my show today.

Self Help Radio celebrates the amazing music made in 1980 today from 4-6pm on WRFL in Lexington - that's 88.1 fm as if you didn't know - & online at wrfl on the web.  I found so much music, I won't be able to play it all.  I hope you listen, I hope you dig.