Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, February 6, 1995 TAG: 9502070005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: AMY WESTFELDT ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA LENGTH: Medium
In stereo.
Fueled by thirtysomething nostalgia for the simpler times of the '70s, radio is bringing back music from the era associated with bell bottoms, big hair and the Bradys.
All-'70s radio stations are cropping up everywhere, combining the ballads of Jim Croce, the hard rock of Led Zeppelin and the disco ``Saturday Night Fever'' soundtrack on the same peculiar playlist.
Playing back the oldies is not new to radio, but waxing nostalgic for the '70s is a fresh approach. Executives who made the switch say they're targeting the people who listened to the music in their formative years and have just hit the age when they're old enough to miss it.
``People tend to be most attached to the music of their teen and early 20 years,'' said Julian Breen, the program director at WMGK-FM in Philadelphia, which went all-'70s last summer. ``There's something about that age that tends to fix a musical taste among a lot of people.''
Just over a year ago, stations in Tampa, Fla., and Los Angeles were the first to go all-'70s. Since then, stations have switched in nine of the country's 10 largest radio markets. New York is the only holdout.
A Seattle station went a step further and rehired some staff members who worked for the station in the 1970s.
``This format is going to be in every market in the country by midyear next year,'' said Greg Strassell, vice president of programming for WCGY-FM in Boston, which switched formats last September. ``Everyone has to have one.''
WMGK-FM in Philadelphia was known as an adult contemporary station, surviving on ``oversung ballads'' by Michael Bolton and Whitney Houston, Breen said, before it switched formats last July.
The station tested listeners' panels for months for the most popular music the market was missing before deciding on all-'70s.
Now WMGK shifts between genres of the period, airing folk, soul, hard rock and disco one after the other.
The variety is a sharp departure from today's stations with fixed formats and markets, said Tom Moon, The Philadelphia Inquirer's music critic.
``It creates a nostalgia for a time when the world was less fragmented musically, when there was not such a huge gulf between the black pop of the day and the white pop of the day,'' Moon said.
The new old music has given WMGK-FM 75,000 more listeners since the summer, Breen said, and an impressive improvement in the 25- to 54-age bracket.
Industry analysts say members of the age group find the music of their past comforting, although they don't want to own up to it.
``Your strongest song and life influences come when you are in high school and college,'' said Robert Unmacht, an editor of M Street Journal, an industry magazine. ``But people didn't want to admit that they liked songs like `You Light Up My Life.' ''
The key to remembering well may be not remembering everything, said Boston's Strassell. His station also has surged in the ratings.
``The radio stations that will win are the ones who are playing the best songs from the '70s, not the bad songs from the '70s,'' he said.
Breen said the station doesn't follow the Billboard charts to the letter, omitting songs that don't pass muster years later.
``I don't think I want to play `Go Away, Little Girl' by Donny Osmond every time,'' he said. ``We play it every once and awhile, like a novelty, like `ha-ha.' ''
One of the first request calls to WCGY on Sept. 30 came from the Harvard College student cafeteria, Strassell said, evidence that even people who were born in the '70s are hungry for the music.
Marvin Pippert teaches a course on popular culture and rock 'n' roll at Roanoke College in Roanoke, Va., and his students listen to the same songs he does.
``They know relatively old Rolling Stones songs,'' said Pippert, an associate sociology professor who grew up in the '70s. ``Somehow these 18 to 22 year-olds like the stuff that their parents like, as opposed to my generation.''
Pippert also offers a variation on the theory that people are most attached to the music they hear when they're 18.
``I'm thinking it starts at 12,'' Pippert said. ``It's music that I would never buy. The songs are upbeat. They remind me of when I was outside and playing baseball, at the swimming pool, and all of that stuff, first love and all of those little emotions when I was a preteen or a little teen.''
by CNB