THE 70's STATION REVIVES THE 70's

BUT WHAT DID IT ALL MEAN ?

by MARY WADE BURNSIDE
 

"If there's a bustle in your hedgerow, don't be alarmed now, it's just a spring clean for the May-queen.' -- Led Zeppelin, "Stairway to Heaven'

Coming from a decade filled with silly lyrics, Led Zeppelin's epic "Stairway to Heaven' endured.  Not so for these gems:  'Muskrat Love,' 'You Light Up My Life,' 'Having My Baby' and 'Undercover Angel.'  But maybe their time has returned.  After all, filmmaker Quentin Tarantino has become the first really cool famous person to unabashedly admit he likes the decade of his formative years, so much that he hired 70's poster boy John Travolta to star in 'Pulp Fiction.'  The soundtrack to his first film, 'Reservoir Dogs,' featured a 70's radio station and such nostalgic tunes as 'Stuck in the Middle With You.'

Real radio stations have followed suit, including a station in Charleston that just went to an all 70's music format. WKAZ, at 107.3 on your FM dial, has been churning out the Allman Brothers, Foreigner and George Harrison for about a month now.  So far, no disco.  And no 'Seasons in the Sun,' (...goodbye my friend it's hard to die, when all the birds are singing in the sky, now that the spring is in the air...)  Instead, WKAZ seems heavy on the Steve Miller, the Eagles and the music that helped give the '70s a mix of rebellion and fun, songs that just emanate the feeling 'Have a Nice Day.'  

"You've probably noticed 107 doesn't play a lot of disco, if any,' said Dale Miller, the general manager of West Virginia Radio Corporation, which includes Kicks 96, V100 and WKAZ.  "The rock acts that came out of the 70's - Jethro Tull, Led Zeppelin - it would be hard to say that was a joke.'  In fact, Miller notes, many of the singers who emerged from the decade still make music in the 1990s - Elton John, Eric Clapton, Rod Stewart.  The New York-based station co-owner Steve Kingston said the station's rotation of 500 to 700 songs will not include those novelty songs made famous in the 1970s.  

Still, WKAZ makes the most of nostalgia for the decade.  A taped voice booming across the airwaves (disc jockeys will come later) offers bits of wisdom in between songs, such as this: 'The first time you heard this song, you were in a Pinto.'  Hey, what did you expect?  'The first time you heard this song, you were waiting in a really long line to buy gas as Nixon announced his resignation'?   So the decade that pundits did not even allow to conclude before lambasting it has returned.  To be fashionable meant wearing bell-bottoms and leisure suits, clothes with a look considered anything but timeless.  Do kids automatically look back 20 years to choose their trends ?   After all, in the 1970s, a television show called 'Happy Days' -- about the 1950s -- prevailed.  

Personally, I think that's what goes on,' said Marvin Pippert, an associate professor of sociology, who teaches a course in pop culture at Roanoke (Virginia) College.  "If I was living through the 70's and I'm 40 and these kids are young enough to be my kids, it means that Dad would have had the music going when they were 6, 8, 12.  So in some ways, they lived that music as well.'

Steven Bailey, an instructor in the Department of Pop Culture at Bowling Green State University in Ohio, said the trend could come partly from young adults whose parents listened to Pink Floyd, as opposed to 'The Pina Colada Song.'  "I think people listening to 'The Pina Colada Song' are looking at it as an embarrassing relic or the worst example of the hippie culture,' Bailey said.  But Bailey sees the recent release of an entire album of covers of Carpenters tunes by alternative groups as a way for these rockers to thumb their noses at the standard.  "It's like, if the rock critics say the best music is from Bob Dylan, you claim the worst piece of music,'  Bailey said. 

Maybe the same could be said for Urge Overkill's cover of Neil Diamond's 'Girl, You'll Be a Woman Soon,' except that filmmaker Tarantino probably likes Neil Diamond.  But did Tarantino help start the trend, or did he just give it a boost ?

"I think sort of both,' Bailey said. "He's reacting to the trend in more Bohemian circles, but he certainly helped popularize it by including it in 'Reservoir Dogs' and even 'Pulp Fiction,' which includes the same '70s sound, like 'Jungle Fever' by Kool and the Gang.  Tarantino also helped pave the way for the recently released 'Muriel's Wedding', which includes a soundtrack filled with ABBA songs. "And now we've got 'The Brady Bunch Movie,'' Pippert said.

Even though the decade of the 70's comes with such a bad rap, several different types of music really took hold in the decade.  First, album-oriented rock became a force on the radio and helped give the decade a reputation for over-produced, indulgent music,  Bailey said.  Then, toward the end of the decade, not only disco, but punk rock emerged. "In the beginning, critics said it was about being bloated and boring and pretentious,' Bailey said. "But that's no longer relevant.  Eventually, 70's music came to be seen as something more authentic and genuine than the more technologically dominated music of the 80's.  

One music critic from the Philadelphia Inquirer told The Associated Press that listeners might look upon the 1970s with nostalgia now because it takes them back to the time before rap took hold and music did not seem so racially divergent.  "The reality is that the 70's were a lot more racist than now,' said Vicki Karns, an associate professor of communication at Suffolk University in Boston. "Minority groups didn't have a vehicle for expressing themselves, and clubs tended to be real segregated.'

Pippert does not buy the idea that kids today feel music divides them. "The thing that is interesting is that the No. 1 target market for gangster rap is white males between the ages of 15 and 25,' he said.  "They're the ones buying it.'  In the end, most critics agree that good music from each decade prevails, and the rest goes the way of "Playground in My Mind.'  On  the whole, in spite of 'Mandy' and 'Brandy,' 'Billy, Don't Be a Hero' and (aah-aah-) 'Afternoon Delight,' the 1970s really did not offer music any worse than any other decade. 

After all, groups such as A Flock of Seagulls came out in the 1980s, and the song 'Too Sexy (For My Shirt)' was released only a couple of years ago.  "Let's face it,' Pippert said.  "We've got Michael Bolton in the 1990s.  What's the value of his music ?'

from an article in THE SUNDAY GAZETTE-MAIL
Published: April 7, 1995