casey's top 40

Alright, we continue our quest to blog every day in July with Day Nine of what I call The July 31... 31 blogs in July.  So, even though its tough, I'm dedicated to making sure that...

...I'm sorry, what...?

...what did you say today was?  The 10th of July...?

...um...

...awkward pause...

Well, crap.

Okay, we continue our quest to blog every other day in July, with Day Nine of what I call The July 31... 31 blogs in July, though with a day in between to give you some time to actually read my brilliant thoughts. 

On with the show.

With two cars in our garage, we take our cars at various times... sometimes we take Red Robin, other times we take hers.  We take mine, and we can listen to SiriusXM radio.  We take hers, and it gives us a little more room, as we have a car seat in the back, though she just has regular, terrestrial radio. 

However, on Sunday mornings, it doesn't matter which car we take... because when driving to Valleydale Church (an sbc fellowship) on Sunday morning, I always end up turning the station to Magic 96.5.  The reason?  At 9am, the start a reply of American Top 40 with Casey Kasem, from at least 20, many times 30 years ago.

Don't know how long Magic 96.5 has been doing it, but its a total delight to hear it, even if only for the 15 minutes it takes to get to the church from The Cabana.  Its a 4 hour broadcast, so usually we can catch some of the Top Ten as we are headed from church to wherever lunch will be that day. 

And if there is one thing I've truly figured out, its that music from the early 80s... well, it absolutely blew.  It was terrible.  For every great band with great hits like Hall & Oates or Fleetwood Mac, you had a dozen one hit wonders like Marty Balin, Champaign, Tierra or Franke & the Knockouts.  All singing songs that I'd never heard of.

One episode had Rupert Holmes follow up hit to "Escape (the pina colada song)", a little ditty called "Him".  It was terrible.  And the first hit from Tommy Tutone... no, not "867-5309 (Jenny)"... instead it was a snappy little song called "Angel Say No".  And it was terrible. 

Heard this 1982 song from this chick named Patrice Rushen.  Her song was called "Forget Me Nots", but when it came on, I was completely confused, as the beginning sounded just like a Will Smith hit, that being the title track from "Men in Black".  Seems that Will Smith sampled "Forget Me Nots" for "Men in Black.'

Mind.

Blown.

Anyway, something I couldn't help but notice was that music in 1982 is a lot like today... a few gems surrounded by a whole lot of crap.  Like I said, back then, Hall & Oates, The Eagles, Eddie Money, even Olivia Newton John, was still making great music.  And a whole lot of stuff around it not only sucked, but was completely forgettable.  I mean, I pride myself on knowing a lot about music and musical randomness from the 70s, 80s and 90s, but I have never heard of Charlie Dore and "Pilot of the Airwaves", or "Tired of Toeing the Line" by Rocky Burnett, and though I've heard of Boz Scaggs, what is "Jojo"?  And The Alan Parsons Projects had more hits that "Eye in the Sky", and they both managed to stink?

And today?  You've got great artists like Adele, Usher and maybe even Bruno Mars and Katy Perry, artists that we'll probably remember in 2041 while listening to Ryan Seacrest's Top 40 flashbacks on Sunday mornings.  But surrounding them, you've got forgettable sound-alike artists like Lupe Fiasco?  Rick Ross?  What the crap is a Wiz Kalifia?   And the fact that Ke$ha had not 1, but TWO songs in 2011's Top 100 of the year... oy vay. 

Sorry.  Didn't mean to diatribe... but I still believe that 1990 to 1995 was the Greatest. Era. of Music.  Ever.  One of these days I'll defend that position, until them just assume I'm right.