Give me a few names and I'll let you know how often I ever heard them. I was the kind of kid who actually taped Casey Casem's broadcast of the AT40 on more than a few Saturday afternoons.

What you describe is still the exact same situation as today, you need to find the right station, that might play the cool track, -once- a week. If you're lucky. But once it's over and the styles of the day have fallen out of vogue it's WAY easier for modern listeners to look back and avoid all the chaff and noise that cluttered and competed for the attention of the listeners and go right to the quality that was always just beneath the surface.

That was the No.1 song on the Billboard charts on the day my dad was born!:laughing:

If anyone is old enough to remember taping stuff from the radio, they'll get it. Sometimes you had to wait by the radio for hours to get that one song you liked. We didn't get AT40 here in Canada, though. At least not on any of the stations I listened to. The CRTC and its required Canadian content...

I wonder if Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" got played as often back in the day as it was when Glee brought it back to the limelight. I don't think I can tolerate hearing that song ever again.

I had no idea that song had any kind of resurgence but I certainly remember hearing it a lot on the radio as a little kid in the early 80s.

Ok yea that was pretty bad.
But I'd take it over dance
and hip - hop current superficial mainstream any day. At least this had some sort of message of hope.

Mainstream 60's was a very interesting mix. In The States, it was the time when many radio stations took requests and took some notice of what the Public said. One week, you had The Green Barrets at the top (Also #2 Country!), the next you had The Righteous Brothers, and then after that The Young Rascals. It was not all perfect, as a lot of stations were not really forward thinking or adventurous (Note the banning on several records of the day like The Standells' "Try It"), but on the good side, it was also the era where there was the thing called the "Regional Hit" that was known in possibly one or two cities. Even Billboard up to 1966 had regional charts as reported I think by a selected radio station (they were gone I think by 1967). Even if there ware a lot of people who did not or would not get the wildness going on, and also labels that had a very hard time getting great music out there, it was still a very interesting time for music.

You had great stuff, you had mush, but all in all, up until about 1968, when FM Rock took Rock into another scene when Top 40 could not really get into it anymore, it was a crazy mix I liked. The AM Radio was actually exciting then.

I think that through The 70's, the attack of the Automated stations, Radio Mega-businesses, and even taking less requests (Actually a 1980 issue from July had a front-page story in Billboard about the later as a growing trend) caused the serious lame-out of Top 40, although thankfully there were a few good things happening.

yes Casey Kasem's show was broadcasted here as well

but i hated the American charts in the 80s

i'd rather listen to the British top 20 on the "BBC World Service"

and the John Peel Show (weird ****) and the Andy Kershaw show (world music)

I totally agree, the 60's, 70's and 80's had the best musicians and the best music!
BUT- I'm sure you can find some great bands today too, you just have to look for them :-)

Can we just accept that every generation has had a lot of **** music and some gems that you have to dig for? It seems like people are just restating this over and over now.

Maybe it's just my age and the era I live in now.

And for ABBA that proverbial pulse flatlined in the 80s. :D The group itself, how it's constructed, is a writing team and a vocal group (two sets of couples - which is unique in a way) back by studio musicians - and they were nothing more than Schlager meets Spector. I've heard better and I've heard worse. I can't see where ABBA was as great as they are made out to be. ABBA only had one #1 song in America on the Billboard 100. Lennon & McCartney and Burt Bacharach & Hal David were both much better as a writing team. For some reason there's this notion some believe that when it comes to certain bands/artist (like The Velvet Underground, ABBA, Jacko, and Nirvana) their material was the end all and be all of music.