In a testament to college radio’s influence at the time; a 1990 piece in the Village Voice includes colorful trash-talking about the 1980s college radio scene. Republished this week, 1980-1989: Pop Goes the Decade carries the byline “Eddie Gorodetsky, as ranted to Jan Hoffman.” The comedy writer/comic collector/pop culture commentator touches on many things in the “rant,” but his take on student radio is priceless.
Gorodetsky complains about the state of radio in the 1980s, saying that’s it’s basically just New Age and Classic Rock music, with not much in the way of new sounds. While most folks would just focus on the dismal state of the mainstream, he adds,
I’m not going to let college radio off the hook. Listening to college radio is like being a Freemason. It’s like a little secret society and you almost always feel like an outsider when you’re listening to it unless you’ve mastered all the secret handshakes and catchphrases. Of course there are exceptions. But mostly they preach to the already converted. Six songs by the Connells and then the Reivers. Who cares?
Anyone else remember the Connells or the Reivers?
He continues, taking issue with the wide variety of shows on college radio; although earlier he complained about the narrowness of mainstream radio.
From show to show, it’s so splintered and incoherent, and caters only to narrow interests: it’s like choosing electives in college. ‘I’m majoring in Power Pop!’ or ‘I’m majoring in Velvet Underground–Inspired Drug Songs!’ People fall for college radio being Hipper Than Thou.
What I think he’s getting at is that there needs to be some sort of middle ground. Rather than alienating potential listeners, he calls for a bit of a balancing act in which stations are playing familiar and non-familiar material to ease people in to more radical sounds, imploring, “Give people a way to get into it — don’t be such a self-important ghetto.” While this is a period period piece looking back at the 1980s, I’m curious if many people have the same reactions to college radio in 2020. Is it hard for some to listen and approach it? Or are diversely programming college radio stations a welcome respite from tightly formatted commercial radio?
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Events
History
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- 1980-1989: Pop Goes the Decade (The Village Voice)
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