Last night the family and I drove over to Weber’s, an old-fashioned, American Graffiti-style drive-in near us for after-dinner milkshakes and root beer floats. I recently loaded The Cars‘ first album on my iPod to please my wife during summer drives. It’s on of her high school favorites, and I figured it would be a good time to introduce our boys to the album on our short drive. A massive thunderstorm broke out, so the normally 5-minute drive took a good 20 minutes. We ended up letting the album play out as we enjoyed our desserts. The boys warmed up to the album after our oldest son’s initial “What’s this music?!?!” as “Let the Good Times Roll” kicked things off. My wife loved every minute of it, and I got to thinking about the days when commercial radio stations played more than one track from a new album – and more than one track from an artist, for that matter.
Long before I bought a used vinyl copy of the first Cars album and long after having seen them at Philadelphia’s soon-to-be-demolished Spectrum, at my first-ever rock concert (Greg Kihn Band opened, playing “Roadrunner,” which at the time I had no idea was connected to Cars’ drummer David Robinson – and yes, I can see how the fact that this connection came to me while sucking down a root beer float last night might be seen as pathetic) I knew every song on that first album. Late on a Sunday night, FM radio stations in the late-’70s occasionally featured a new release in its entirety, but that’s not how I knew every song on this new album, The Cars. Rather it was because, in those days, there were occasionally new albums, over the course of the album’s first few months on the market, radio stations would incorporate into their playlists almost in their entirety. I don’t know what kind of payola system was in place for this to happen, how much coke satin-clad DJs snorted off the nipples of hookers, or what, but older heads will recall: there was a time when a new album often resulted in three or four tracks being played on the radio. As in the case of the first Cars album, there were even albums that DJs felt confident dropping the needle down at any point. I’m not dreaming, am I? As I listened to The Cars last night it occurred to me that the album contained not a single deep cut in its time!
I was trying to remember other albums on which every song was regularly played on the radio during the first few months of the album’s release. Only counting albums that I would have heard when they were fresh (ie, classic Beatles, Stones, and Who albums from the ’60s and early ’70s, which had been featured in whole on the likes of A-Z Weekends [remember them?] do not count for me), I thought of The Rolling Stones’ Some Girls, The Cars, and then two albums that probably mark the tail-end of this phenomenon – and that may have each spawned an album’s worth of songs that charted, Michael Jackson’s Thriller and Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA. I’ve never owned the last two albums and I was already too-cool-for-school when they invaded the airwaves, but there was no getting around hearing every track on those albums played to death on commercial radio.
Are there other albums like that from your experience? Again, weed out any Classic Rock albums that you’ve heard on the radio years after they were released; keep it fresh. Has there been an album since the MJ and Boss records that reached this status? Maybe Nirvana’s Nevermind was the last to come close, but what do I know about albums that have been released and played on the radio since? Could you ever imagine anything like this happening again? Are the days of DJs doing coke off a hooker’s nipples that far in the past?
Basically, you are talking about the basic building blocks of rock radio as it existed in the late 70’s /early 80’s. Two released during this period would be Jackson Browne “Running on Empty” (which holds up pretty well with it’s mix of road and stage recordings) and the 1st Boston record (which gets a lot of flack here but I think it is an unacknowledged power pop classic).
And I think it is fair to include the classic Beatles/Stones/Who records as well as Zeppelin II and IV and “Dark Side of the Moon” since these were contemporary in the sense that everyone knew them and you could hear airplay of any track at any time.
The only reason I don’t want to include some of those Classic Rock staples that I grew up hearing on the radio a few years after they were released is because I can’t be sure all tracks were played when the albums were fresh. If you’re old enough to be sure of that, certainly, let us know. If not, I know what you’re saying, but it’s not quite the same thing…
I thought about that first Boston album, which by the way I think is a work of genius (despite the fact that I don’t like most of it), but when I looked at the track list there were some tracks I couldn’t identify by title. Maybe I’m simply not making the connection. At least most of those songs were regularly played when that album was released.
I’d also add Rumours to the list.
A possible late-’80s contender: INXS’ Kick. Though it pains me to mention it, Genesis’ Invisible Touch may qualify as well. These albums do have one or two deep cuts however. I’d argue they are of a slightly different category: albums where close to 75% of the tracks became hit singles. See also, George Michael’s Faith.
I don’t think Nirvana’s Nevermind reached either status, though. Only 4 hit singles (out of 12 songs). And you never heard “Breed” or “Territorial Pissings” on the radio, as I recall.
Oats, no offense, but I have to question whether you can add Rumours to that list:) Were you even 3 years old when that album was released? We need earwitness testimony for this thread. That said, that’s a good one, as are the other ones you suggest! I was in a shoe store over the weekend when one of the big INXS hits came on the radio, the one with the ascending sax break. Man, those guys were so close to being a truly great, big-time rock ‘n roll band.
There were two or three songs on Kick that didn’t get airplay, kind of like VH’s 1984.
I have a feeling I’m going to have trouble convincing people of this, but I strongly recall virtually every song on Achtung Baby getting airplay. Here on the East coast, that album managed to land on both AOR and modern-rock radio. So maybe only the latter format played some of the odder songs, like “Acrobat” or “Zoo Station.”
Mod, two questions:
1. What are “airwaves”?
2. What is a “radio”?
Looking over the tracklist, Oats, I can back up the claim that at least half of the songs on Achtung Baby were regularly played on commercial radio. I never listened to modern-rock stations, so maybe you’re right about what to me are deep cuts. Whether half or all were regularly played, that’s a fine achievement that late in the radio game. I eventually bought that album and, to this day, rarely play more than the half dozen or so songs that I can identify by title.
Oats, I was also thinking that damn near everything from The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby got played on the radio at some point, though there are probably one or two that have since been dropped back into deep cut territory. I think U2 got pretty close to a window of full album airplay again with All That You Can’t Leave Behind.
It’s amazing how huge Kick was at the time and how much of it was on the radio and MTV. Songs just kept rolling off that one, and INXS was everywhere that year. 1987 also had Joshua Tree and Bad, where at least seven of the 11 songs were unavoidable on radio/MTV at the time, and one of the remaining songs has an infamously weird, rarely played video that must have been out that year as well. The one song on Bad I genuinely don’t remember being played and don’t even know how it goes is the one with Stevie Wonder on it.
Invisible Touch is a good call – again, not every song, but a shocking amount of that was ubiquitous on the radio and still would be on a Classic Rock format. I think Def Leppard’s Hysteria would have to be up there in the “not every song but a shocking amount of radio presence” category, too.
I think bands like Creed and Nickelback may have put out albums where damn near everything got played in constant rotation, but they may have also been cases where they just kept putting out identical singles for the year between their albums that made it sound like they each had one 500 track record that never went away.
In high school, we had a driving game of how many times you had to hit the radio buttons before you would hear a track from the Asia debut album. I looked up the track listing for that one and can’t recall a few from the title alone, but who knows, they all sound alike.
It may be a minor point, but does it matter if the delivery system was FM radio (basically album sides from “Abbey Road Suite” to the Genesis self-titled album which has “Mama”) vs MTV’s release of video after video for things like INXS or “The Joshua Tree”?
Good question, k. I hadn’t considered how many early ’80s songs I knew from MTV videos – they now seem interchangeable with ’80s commercial radio for me, so I’ll accept such instances.
I probably know most if not all of The Joshua Tree from radio and MTV videos. Good one!
There goes Mod again, proving how smart he is by broaching a subject I have thought about many times.
I should state that I am thinking of the years roughly 1975-1985 as those of fairly extensive commercial radio listening for me.
The Cars first lp has always been the one that most came to mind. However, growing up in the Boston radio sphere of influence, I was never sure if to some extent it was a local phenomenon: Mod’s comments suggest it was not.
I would add that in my area Candy-O, which I don’t think I owned until recently-ish, was also known in its entirety from the radio.
The Boston debut, around these parts anyway (New England) was also a full-saturation experience, though of course not equally (i.e., More Than a Feeling and Peace of Mind much more airplay than Something About You).
Born To Run, very nearly but not quite. Meeting Across the River? Never heard it on the radio. Night? Maybe.
Rumours, yes. Very nearly Fleetwood Mac (1975) as well.
The first two Van Halen albums come pretty damn close, but I won’t swear on a stack of Bibles that I knew those only from radio.
This day and age in radio is a forgone. There are no mavericks. It’s all cut-and-paste with zero originality. Perhaps college radio is last stand of the looneys taking over the asylum. I remember a few major releases that got alot of buzz on their releases. BIG DEAL records by BIG DEAL artists. The Joshua Tree was light the 80s Sgt. Pepper upon its release. Lots of play. Def Leppard’s Hysteria was massive. There’s alot of that record that got radio play. Of the MJ trilogy of Thriller, Bad, and Dangerous were all huge releases. I never heard ANY of those albums played in their entirety ever. The only record I ever remember hearing in its full glory on the radio was The Cranberries’ Everybody Else Is Doing It. Sad. Just listen to Tom Petty’s record called The Last DJ for further proof…
TB
Geez. I can’t type worth a damn. I apologize for not proof-reading befire submitting.
*is a forgone conclusion.
*college radio is the last stand…
*Joshua Tree was like the 80s….
I will do better by MY RTH. I swear it.
TB
Rumours – absolutely! And Joshua Tree.
Plus:
Led Zep 4 – but already commercial radio (on those album rock stations) in the late 70’s, early 80’s.
Foreigner – Foreigner or Head Games.
Queen – A Night at the Opera.
Super Tramp – Breakfast in America.
And Human League – Dare. The stuff of many, many, many dance classes and dance routines. Sigh.
Foreigner 4
Syncronicity
Full Moon Fever
Slowhand
Brothers In Arms
any of these qualify?
Rio
I agree with a lot of these — Breakfast in America is a good call — I really hated that after awhile. Some others I provide for your consideration –(courtsey of Minneapolis’ KQRS of the late 70s and 80s)
Eric Clapton — Slowhand
Linda Rondstadt — Simple Dreams
The Knack — Get the Knack
Led Zep — In Through the Out Door
Pat Benatar — Crimes of Passion
REO SpeedWagon — Hi Infidelity
John Cougar — American Fool
Two live albums — because 99.9% of us in the suburban Twin Cities had never heard of these two until their hit live albums.
Peter Frampton — Frampton Comes Alive
Cheap Trick — Live at Budokan
Off topic — but worst release after a breakthrough album — if its never been done — would have two strong contenders in “Dream Police” and “I’m in You.”
Good ones, kilroy, and my personal experience with hearing these albums only counts for so much, but each album has a couple of songs I can’t identify by title. Full Moon Fever probably has more radio cuts than Petty’s next-closest album, Damn the Torpedoes, which I’d also thought might qualify.
Who would have thunk Brothers in Arms could be considered for this status?
Breakfast in America makes a surprising challenge, too. What happened to Supertramp after that album? Did one of the lead guys split? Were they the Jayhawks of the ’70s, losing a key band member just as they hit their peak? I kind of liked that album. I still do.
In Through the Out Door! I bought that shortly after it was released, but funoka’s Minneapolis listening experiences may match my own in Philadelphia. “I’m Gonna Crawl” is the only song title that I don’t associate with radio play upon the album’s release, but I could simply be forgetting what that song sounds like.
I think the album after Breakfast in America was the last one for one of Supertramp’s lead singers, Roger Hodgson. I imagine they were a band who were really knocked down by MTV; that was a group whose personality — such as it was — did not manifest itself visually, if you get my drift.
yeah like Tull.
and Foghat.
I believe I may have the winner in this 1980s-and-beyond category. You won’t like it, Mod, but it’s true. One of the last LPs I remember being played from end to end on the radio — and I do mean ALL of it, was:
“Purple Rain,” by Prince.
HVB
HVB, to be clear, if necessary, I don’t mean a radio station feature in which the album is played in its entirety but an album with tracks that all got played on any given day in the album’s first few months on the market. Granted, I don’t care for Prince, but did all those songs get played regularly on the radio? “The Beautiful Ones,” “Computer Blue,” and “Baby I’m a Star” didn’t ring any bells when I sampled them, but what do I know about Prince, and what stations was I (barely) listening to that may have been playing them. It wouldn’t surprise me if all these songs were played on the radio. I just want to make sure that you and others understand the question. Thanks.
Baby I’m a Star was a big hit here in Philly. the other 2 not so much. Yhe rest of the album?
Sho Nuff!
No, I understood the question. “Computer Blue” and “The Beautiful Ones” were admittedly tough to hear on the radio, but they got played, for sure.
Purple Rain — the whole thing got played to death in Mpls, of course. Another couple albums I involuntary know all the songs on are:
(ugh!)Styx — The Grand Illusion.
Alan Parsons Project — I Robot
Agreed on Purple Rain. Pretty much everything on that got at least some play on radio and TV at the time, thanks in part to more than half of the album getting released as singles. And this was in the same year as Thriller and Born In The USA, which have already been mentioned as albums where nearly the whole thing got significant radio play.
There are a few songs on Full Moon Fever that I can’t immediately call to mind, but Petty should get some kind of allowance, because he was competing with himself in 1989 with the first Wilburys album and its singles getting heavy airplay at the same time.
Re: Supertramp, am I alone in never being able to enjoy them? I think they may be the only band that starts with “Super-” that I actively don’t like. I do recall them having a lone, lame video that got some MTV play (“It’s Raining Again”), that may have indeed been their last stand as hitmakers.
I think it’s true that anyone my age would know all but the very deepest deep cut in the entire Beatles catalogue from the radio, but this is not true of the Who or the Stones from the same period.
Saturday Night Fever AND Grease.
Good point, BigSteve. Even on Rolling Stones’ A-Z Weekends it seems like they bypassed some tracks.
You all caught some good ones here: Grand Illusion, Born to Run, Synchronicity (except no single person would air “Mother” on purpose!). And, Alex, I could never enjoy Supertramp after reading a review which summed up the band with one word: Superwimp.
You missed one huge one: Hotel California. From the track listing only “Pretty Maids All in a Row” doesn’t sound familiar but damn sure I’ve heard it somewhere.
k., you know, I thought of Hotel California earlier and much to my surprise (nay, relief!) when I looked at the track listing on Amazon, there there were several songs I did not recognize, and listening to samples didn’t help. And I owned the damn album, well, 8-track. I note with shame.
As for Grand Illusion, mercifully, I think I have never heard half that piece of crap. Made up for by having heard the other half so damn many times. How it torments me.
Saturday Night Fever? You’ve heard “Calypso Breakdown” on the radio? Grease? I don’t think so.
If we were sticking to Philly, then the Hooters’ album Amore was definitely played in its entirety.
Am I the only one thinking of Journey’s “Escape” LP? I grew up in the Bay Area and got a ride to school in my neighbor’s black Trans Am about 3 times a week, and I heard all of Escape that school year. Good thing I discovered the Dead Kennedys soon after that.
Dire Straits “Brothers in Arms” comes to mind too, as I heard all of those tunes on the radio, including the title cut, which was the only song that caught my attention since it did not have an annoying video to go along with it.
Off topic news:
Big Star, whose frontman and chief visionary Alex Chilton passed away earlier this year, just lost another member. Founding bassist Andy Hummel succumbed to heart failure yesterday in Weatherford, Texas, following a two-year battle with cancer. He was 59. Drummer Jody Stephens is now the band’s only surviving member. [Variety.com]
Who’s Next? The first Doors album?
Thank god I don’t recall hearing all those songs from Journey’s Escape album, jazcoleman, but I didn’t realize it packed so many radio hits I had to hear growing up in Philadelphia!
BigSteve, you lived through their releases. Were all or most of the tracks from those albums played on the radio when they came out? I grew up on AM radio in the ’70s, not getting into FM until ’77-’78, but I would imagine AM playlists wouldn’t have played all those Doors songs. Was freeform FM radio built up enough in ’67? By the time of Who’s Next, maybe freeform FM stations would have played all the Who songs. By the time I began listening to FM radio its pioneering days were waning. I’m now curious to hear from Townspeople older than me (47) about how radio playlists or shifts, especially FM playlists and DJ shifts, differed from the waning years of FM’s explosion. I’ve always figured FM was more like cool college stations of my 20s and that AM was more or less how I experienced it as a kid, listening to the final years of the “Boss Jocks” on WFIL,
Peter Gabriel’s “So” album also comes close, but still has one or two that didn’t get play.
I wasn’t thinking of The Doors and Who’s Next as being played that way at the time of their release. I guess I was thinking that music fans would have absorbed all of those songs from the era of expanded AOR playlists, i.e., the later 70s. They became FM classics some years after their release dates.
Underground radio stations would have played the deep cuts certainly. I definitely remember my local underground station playing The End and When the Music’s Over. They were too long to be played on AM, and long songs were one of the reasons those stations existed. Long songs also left the DJs more time to get stoned.
Most of the albums mentioned in this thread were released at the height of AOR. Today I believe that era is relegated to Classic Rock radio, where playlists are much tighter.
What about Hysteria by Def Leppard? They went into that album with a goal of writing ten #1 singles. I guess side one pretty much accomplished that, there are some deep tracks on Side 2 though…
Downunder I can remember ABBA getting played to death when Voulez Vous and Arrival were released – just about every track was on the air at some time. Even though I never bought a single piece of their vinyl, I still can remember the melodies and most of the lyrics from both albums when my Sister-in-law plays them at Christmas. Funny how stuff like that gets so easily burnt into your memory at a young age.
Pink Floyd’s Momentary Lapse of Reason, and Welcome to the Pleasuredome by Frankie Goes To Hollywood also got most of the tracks on air.
When Joshua Tree came out – I don’t think I listened to anything else at all for months. If it wasn’t on the radio it was on my stereo.