Marketplace of Ideas Blog

Older readers of Marketplace may remember the heyday of what then was called Top 40 radio.

In the days when rock music was played on AM radio stations, a typical hour could include anything from early Olivia Newton-John (country-like ballads) to Donna Summer (the phenomenon known as disco) to Paul McCartney and Wings (right-down-the-middle pop) to Kiss (heavy metal before the term had been invented).

Over the years, the rock/pop oeuvre has, in the same way as the media has become segmented, divided itself into what is now called Contemporary Hits Radio, adult contemporary, Hot Adult Contemporary, rock, new rock, classic rock, classic hits, alternative rock, and other iterations, and that’s just on a drive up U.S. 41.

I’ve discovered, however, that one radio station, WDUX (92.7 FM) in Waupaca, still does things the old-fashioned way, at least on Friday mornings, when it programs requests by listeners. And WDUX’s listeners’ requests run the gamut, both chronologically and musically, including a number of what might be termed guilty pleasures.

This was one segment the first Friday I tuned in:

• Johnny Preston, “Running Bear” (which charted at #1 in 1960; the song was written by J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson, who has some local history).
• Van Halen, “Jump” (the group’s only #1 hit, in 1984).
• Gene Pitney, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” (which hit #4 in 1962 — note that this was not the theme song to the movie of the same name, due to a publishing rights dispute).

Intrigued, I tuned in one Friday later and heard this grouping:

• MC Hammer, “U Can’t Touch This” (which reached #8 in 1990, one of the first songs to borrow a melody line from a previously released song, in this case Rick James’ “Superfreak”).
• Journey, “Don’t Stop Believing” (which reached #8 in 1981, and was ranked the 11th greatest song of all time in a 2006 VH1 poll).
• Santo and Johnny, “Sleepwalk” (which reached #1 in 1959).

Now alerted, I tuned in one week ago and heard these five in a row:

• Mary Hopkin, “Those Were the Days” (which reached #2 in 1968).
• Genesis, “Land of Confusion” (a song perhaps better known for its video).
• Golden Earring, “Twilight Zone” (a Top 10 hit in 1982, nine years after the group last charted with “Radar Love”).
• Village People, “In the Navy” (which reached #2 in 1979).
• ABBA, “Mamma Mia” (which reached #32 in the U.S., but was #1 in Australia, Britain, Germany, Ireland and Switzerland).

This is the sort of thing one generally hears only in small radio markets. (Until, that is, the creation of the “Jack” format, which supposedly is ’50s to ’90s plus some hot adult contemporary.) Some people deride this kind of format as “All Over the Road,” and suggest that much tighter formatting leads to radio success. That may be the case, but it probably also leads to much more use of the pushbuttons and “seek” buttons, because almost no one listens to the same radio station all the time.

In the spirit of creating a request list that is (1) from as broad a time range as possible and (2) includes songs that aren’t what you might hear on the radio every day, my wife’s list would be something like this:

• Meat Loaf, “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” (which reached #39 in 1978).
• The Kings, “Switchin’ to Glide/The Beat Goes On” (which reached #43 in 1980).
• Soft Cell, “Tainted Love” (which reached #8 in 1982).
• Dead or Alive, “You Spin Me Round (Like a Record)” (a song — #11 in 1985, by the way — she heard performed live in Puerto Rico, where a friend of hers sprained her ankle jumping off a baseball stadium dugout roof into a mosh pit).
• Avril Lavigne, “Sk8er Boi.” (Lavigne’s spelling, not mine, and by the way it reached #10 in 2002.)
• Black Eyed Peas, “My Humps.” (Not the answer I was expecting, but music taste is personal, after all.)

This might be my list, or at least the list today:

• Tennessee Ernie Ford, “Sixteen Tons” (1956) (the original, not the, uh, go-go, or pre-disco, version).
• Bobby Darin, “Mack the Knife” (one of the few “murder ballads” to chart, in this case #1 in 1959).
• Chicago, “Make Me Smile” (and you know why).
• Jefferson Starship, “Jane” (which reached #14 in 1980).
• The Clarks, “Cigarette.”
• Coldplay, “Clocks” (which hit #1 in 2003).

I forgot one more: Vilas Craig and the Kollege Kings, “Spring Fever.” (Why? Because my father is the piano player, that’s why.)