Morrissey finally breaks into the top spot on the MRT chart with "Tomorrow," a song that forced me to confront the shame of having never listened to The Smiths
I was also a DJ at a college radio station for four years in the late 90s. I came in with a distinct lack of appreciation for 80s music of all stripes, and the station’s programming brought me to love and respect the Smiths and tons of other acts of the era. I don’t say this in an effort to be a snob about it at all, but it’s just very hard to believe that your station existed in some alternate universe without this. What did they play?
Fair question. I think a couple of factors played a role in me not knowing about certain legacy acts from the '80s and early '90s:
- I was born and raised in a relatively small market, so the diversity of radio stations was not great. It's still not.
- I grew up in a house where we listened to standards from the '60s and '70s, so my musical knowledge is far wider in those areas than the average 40-something.
- I was a DJ from early 1998 to 2001, and it was a station whose rotation was heavily focused within a year of the air date. I will likely share some super-deep cuts from those years when the time comes, but because of the modern focus, we didn't have a big "recurrent" or "oldies" section, and by that time, the "oldies" were tracks from "Dookie" and "Superunknown" and "Siamese Dream."
- It's possible there were niche specialty shows that catered to tracks from the early '90s, but I generally didn't listen.
- In the late '90s, CDs were priced stupidly high, so the gateway for entry into a new band was pretty high. And my circle of friends, many of whom are still my close friends today, just don't have an interest in music beyond a pop-mainstream appreciation, so I didn't have anyone to swap albums or mix tapes with.
Streaming services really opened the door to much older bands and music for me. I've been playing catch-up on decades of music, and finding lots of songs and acts that are new to me but have been beloved by many more for a lot longer. This Substack came about to force myself to dive deeper into acts I didn't already know, or had heard of but haven't listened to yet.
Interesting, thanks for explaining. The original article makes it sound a little like you couldn’t believe that anyone couldn’t believe that you grew up in a Smithsless universe. Our environment shapes our cultural intake so drastically.
I spent most of my high school years listening to metal and grunge and didn’t move to the “alternative rock” station until like 1994 (there was a national format called “Z Rock” that very suddenly decided to switch to country. I turned it on one day to hear “The River” on repeat). So all those Smiths and New Order and Depeche Mode songs were the recurrents. I didn’t much care for them at the time, as they sounded “old” and had way too many keyboards (blecch). Then when I was a college freshman in 1995, I get to the radio station to find all the alt-rock radio songs from 1989-1994- a lot of the stuff you’ve been covering on this site- filling the playlist. I didn’t know a lot of these songs, as I hadn’t been listening to that radio format at the time they were current, and so I had to learn to like them. I remember thinking Jellyfish was the worst thing I’d ever heard. Later on that changed!
I was also a DJ at a college radio station for four years in the late 90s. I came in with a distinct lack of appreciation for 80s music of all stripes, and the station’s programming brought me to love and respect the Smiths and tons of other acts of the era. I don’t say this in an effort to be a snob about it at all, but it’s just very hard to believe that your station existed in some alternate universe without this. What did they play?
Fair question. I think a couple of factors played a role in me not knowing about certain legacy acts from the '80s and early '90s:
- I was born and raised in a relatively small market, so the diversity of radio stations was not great. It's still not.
- I grew up in a house where we listened to standards from the '60s and '70s, so my musical knowledge is far wider in those areas than the average 40-something.
- I was a DJ from early 1998 to 2001, and it was a station whose rotation was heavily focused within a year of the air date. I will likely share some super-deep cuts from those years when the time comes, but because of the modern focus, we didn't have a big "recurrent" or "oldies" section, and by that time, the "oldies" were tracks from "Dookie" and "Superunknown" and "Siamese Dream."
- It's possible there were niche specialty shows that catered to tracks from the early '90s, but I generally didn't listen.
- In the late '90s, CDs were priced stupidly high, so the gateway for entry into a new band was pretty high. And my circle of friends, many of whom are still my close friends today, just don't have an interest in music beyond a pop-mainstream appreciation, so I didn't have anyone to swap albums or mix tapes with.
Streaming services really opened the door to much older bands and music for me. I've been playing catch-up on decades of music, and finding lots of songs and acts that are new to me but have been beloved by many more for a lot longer. This Substack came about to force myself to dive deeper into acts I didn't already know, or had heard of but haven't listened to yet.
“Girlfriend in a coma, I know
I know, it's serious”
Instant fan….
It's a terrific track, for sure! It's pretty much impossible to find a bad track in the 20 listed on the Billboard link.
Interesting, thanks for explaining. The original article makes it sound a little like you couldn’t believe that anyone couldn’t believe that you grew up in a Smithsless universe. Our environment shapes our cultural intake so drastically.
I spent most of my high school years listening to metal and grunge and didn’t move to the “alternative rock” station until like 1994 (there was a national format called “Z Rock” that very suddenly decided to switch to country. I turned it on one day to hear “The River” on repeat). So all those Smiths and New Order and Depeche Mode songs were the recurrents. I didn’t much care for them at the time, as they sounded “old” and had way too many keyboards (blecch). Then when I was a college freshman in 1995, I get to the radio station to find all the alt-rock radio songs from 1989-1994- a lot of the stuff you’ve been covering on this site- filling the playlist. I didn’t know a lot of these songs, as I hadn’t been listening to that radio format at the time they were current, and so I had to learn to like them. I remember thinking Jellyfish was the worst thing I’d ever heard. Later on that changed!