FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio - Don't touch that dial: why FM radio sucks - Review

Washington Monthly, Nov, 2001 by Frank Ahrens

FM:
The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio
by Richard Neer
Villard Books, $24.95

FOR MILLIONS OF PEOPLE, ROCK RADIO today is infuriating. You bounce back and forth between alternative rock stations that repeat the same derivative grunge-rap, kiddy-pop stations transfixed by 'N Sync, and classic rock station cranking out painfully overplayed Stones and Bachman-Turner Overdrive cuts. The alternatives are too horrible to contemplate, so you switch to NPR or pop in a CD.

It wasn't always this bad. As recently as a few years ago, on at least some alternative rock stations in some cities, there was a decent shot you'd hear the latest Nirvana, Beck, and New Order. There have been earlier periods when rock radio shone, too. Around 1983, bands like the Talking Heads, the B-52s, the Psychedelic Furs, and even a little Gang of Four and Mission of Burma made it onto the airwaves. And, of course, there were the venerated days of "free-form" or "progressive" rock radio in the late 1960s when both the music and the radio stations were REALLY terrific, if your chronic-clouded memory serves you. What happened to rock radio? Has it been maliciously murdered by corporations and consultants? Did it die of starvation, as rock music nearly did in the crush of the '90s black artist juggernaut? Or did it OD on its own mainlined pretension and self-segregation? Did rock radio commit suicide?

It's hard to believe now, but FM rock was once so cool, they made a whole movie about it. In 1978's FM, Los Angeles rocker Q-SKY is the top-rated station in town because the deejays play the music they like. Enter Evil Corporate Boss, who wants more advertising, less music. Struggle for soul of station ensues. A fine soundtrack issued forth, including the title track by Steely Dan, a valentine to a radio bandwidth: "FM (No Static at All)." The movie FM became something of a metaphor for what happened to the prog-rock FMers of the glory days. The little bud of cool was discovered, deemed valuable, commodified by The Man, and extinguished in its original form. It's said that America avoids revolutions by absorbing them. This is exactly what happened to cutting-edge FM radio some three decades ago.

The history of FM rock radio is a good tale, encompassing issues of taste, politics, culture, and the central question: Whose radio station is it, anyway? Richard Neer, a longtime free-form deejay, has taken a stab at answering some of these questions in his history of radio, FM: The Rise and Fall of Rock Radio. Unfortunately, Neer's take on this worthy topic is as rambling and incoherent as an old free-former's airshift. But two interesting truths can be gleaned from his book: The early days of rock radio weren't nearly as admirable as we might remember them, and the corporate interests that now control radio aren't necessarily to blame for the low quality of what passes for rock radio today.

Sex, Drugs and FM Radio

On today's radio dial, AM stations are strictly second-class citizens. Ruled by Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura, AM is the province of talk shows, sports, staticky ethnic music and the jeremiads of overnight wackos. Thirty-five years ago, the opposite was true. Powerhouse stations like WOR and WABC in New York were found on the AM dial. The jocks--men like Cousin Brucie Morrow--were stars. They had machine-gun mike styles and tight, tight playlists, more Top 20 than Top 40. By contrast, FM was a throwaway bandwidth. What's more, the FM morning-drive deejay shift--by far the highest-paying, most profitable time slot at any station today--was the least important because practically nobody had FM receivers in their cars. (Amazing, yet true.)

In FM, Neer tells a fascinating story about a fellow Called Edward Armstrong, who discovered and promoted FM radio in the 1930s. He instantly realized how much better it sounded than tinny AM. Yet, the big radio companies of the day were heavily invested in producing and marketing AM receivers, and threw up numerous roadblocks. Driven to despair by bad luck and corporate treachery, Armstrong came to believe that his life and work were failures and, in 1954, he composed an apology to his wife and leaped to his death from a 13th-floor window.

But at isolated FM stations like KFOG in San Francisco, WXRT in Chicago, and what later became the Mecca of them all, New York's WNEW, FM's stock was slowly rising. At these stations, ownership tolerated experimentation--what was there to lose? WNEW was one of the first to abandon the rigid Top-40 format and embrace what those nutty kids were listening to. Big-voiced, relentlessly cheery, airhead AM jocks were replaced by cerebral deejays who talked to listeners about politics and philosophy. They read poems and polemicized about the civil rights movement and played whatever they wanted. Jocks mixed Miles Davis with Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix with James Taylor. They flaunted their encyclopedic musical knowledge. When it worked, it was groundbreaking. When it didn't (which was frequently) it was tedious and tyrannical.