by Kevin Burton The Band Rush made a musical comment on the state of radio in 1980’s “The Spirit of Radio.” It took me more than 40 years to get wind of it. Though they made reference to the lyrics of two of my heroes, Simon and Garfunkel, in the song, they didn’t …
Category Archives: rock and Roll
Video Killed Your Imagination, Not Radio
I think I’m done writing about MTV and Clear Channel for the moment, but I have one more thought on that Buggles tune, “Video Killed The Radio Star.” I raised the question without answering it in my Friday story: “If you could get your favorite top 40 hits, with pictures, moving pictures, wouldn’t that …
Clear Channel (iHeart) Killed The Radio Star
by Kevin Burton In the old days we turned on our radios for music, for news, for sports and weather forecasts, and we got all those things. But what we really loved, and what kept us coming back for more, was the way those things were delivered, something that was woven throughout the …
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Raised On Radio: MTV And Killer Video
by Kevin Burton In J.G. Ballard’s short story “The Sound-Sweep,” the main character is a non-verbal boy who has the job of vacuuming up all the stray sounds in a world without music. He befriends an opera singer living in an abandoned recording studio. The opera singer is destitute, having been displaced from …
Can You Imagine Elton John As A Banker?
by Kevin Burton Elton John turns 76 today. So when I was nine years old listening to Crocodile Rock, he was all of 26. He wasn’t called Sir Elton back then, not hardly. He was a sight to behold. His wild costumes and antics on stage. His huge international hit songs, these …
Raised On Radio: Petty’s “Last DJ” Banned
by Kevin Burton National DJ Day on Jan. 20 sent me rocking down memory lane, recalling a time when deft tuning of a transistor radio could take you to another world. The heyday of radio, as we talk about it now in the past tense, was a whole other American era, an entirely …
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The Case For George Harrison, Best Beatle
by Kevin Burton I asked a co-worker, a big Beatles fan who has played guitar since high school, for his opinion on The Big Question: Who was the most essential Beatle? I suppose I was spoiling for a McCartney/Lennon fight. That discussion goes to Paul McCartney and John Lennon and stops there, right? …
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Quibbles And Bits: Chiefs An Evil Empire?
by Kevin Burton Today, some updates, passing asides and leftovers from previous posts. When I cook these up together, I call them quibbles and bits. Come and get it!: From my two posts about favorite duets: I can not overstate how much I love much of the work of Paul McCartney. …
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Looking For A Spark In A Springsteen Song
by Kevin Burton My favorite Bruce Springsteen song was born of irritation and is marinated in frustration. I seem to have slipped into it comfortably, as one might slip into a t-shirt and jeans. Here is how the song came to be, according to SongFacts: “Springsteen wrote it after his manager, …
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Love Is Growing New And She’s Still The One
by Kevin Burton Found a lyric last week that is so cool, I want to use it to tell my happy Valentine’s Day story. This is what happens when my usual Tuneful Tuesday post coincides with Valentine’s Day. The song “Still The One” went to number five for Orleans in 1976. It’s …
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