Customer Reviews

Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution That Shaped a Generation

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There was a Golden Age of radio, with Gothic-design cabinets pumping out live music and radio drama. Radio had branched out from crystal sets used by hobbyists into a mass medium like no other seen before, and in America it was the first source of a national pop culture. The Golden Age passed as television took over. Television was predicted to be the death of radio, as have subsequent technologies, but radio has continued to be resilient. In _Something in the Air: Radio, Rock, and the Revolution that Shaped a Generation_, Marc Fisher, a newspaper writer who has a weekly column on radio, covers how radio brought forth rock-and-roll, Top Forty playlists, disk jockeys, midnight raconteurs, FM, national talk and phone-in shows, National Public Radio, and shock jocks. Radio never died, and is not dead, but much of Fisher's book reads like a eulogy; his beloved era of listening to his transistor radio illicitly under the pillow is long gone. The story of the influence of past days, and the way radio was repeatedly reshaped in the classical effort to balance artistry and budgets, makes a framework for many funny and poignant anecdotes. This is an excellent history of a small part of modern times, a part that was enormously influential in making current American society.

The story starts with someone you have probably never heard of, Todd Storz, who realized that radio stations had the best ratings when favorite tunes were played over and over. So from his Omaha station he dropped the homemaker show, the soap operas, the Bible show, and the rest, and started introducing the songs played on _Your Hit Parade_, the weekly show that was supposed to be based on the most popular songs in the nation. Storz let the disk jockeys select the tunes, with a strong preference for current popularity, and Top Forty radio was born, not because there was anything scientific about picking forty top hits, but because forty was the approximate number of records a deejay could play in a standard three hour shift. The style of deejay patter was fast, fun, and frenetic; the deejay's job was to hook listeners and make them wonder what was coming up next. Storz ushered in the era of deejay publicity stunts, staying awake for days, sitting atop flagpoles, and so on. There was no charity drive involved, no protest, just renegade behavior for its own sake, and the sake of split-second fame; young people loved it, and loved that it mystified the elders. There are still those who can exploit the mesmerizing hold a solitary radio voice can have on listeners; Garrison Keillor, of course, is the best known current performer.

Top Forty drifted after the Beatles broke up and FM stations started playing rock a new way. Intensive research has yielded stations that present the same format of music blandly over the nation. Computers made possible completely automated shows without any local talent. The infamous Clear Channel has bought up so many local stations and fed them routine programming that it has been hard for locals to get control even in an emergency. In 2002, a train derailment sent toxic ammonia fumes through Minot, North Dakota. It would have been handy to have radio issue emergency bulletins, but Clear Channel had control of all six local stations, each running automatic satellite feeds, and police had no one to contact to make the warnings happen. Computers might have revived radio's niche markets, because there are huge audiences for jazz, authentic bluegrass, zydeco, and so on. There were such stations broadcasting via the internet, but commercial broadcasters, who didn't have to pay royalties to music publishers, pressured for new rules that would require royalties from internet stations, and such stations were eventually silenced. The same broadcasters rallied against small-coverage, low-power FM stations, but the "radio for the people" movement may ease doubts "... about the desire people have to hear one another, or about radio's capacity to forge those bonds." The book ends with a look at a throwback, station WLNG of Sag Harbor, Long Island, a labor of love harking back to the 1950s, before standardization. It has been led for decades by a guy who used to play radio announcer as a kid. The locals love it, and the deejays stick around for years and years. It's a cheerful and upbeat ending for the book. Fisher points out that Edmund Burke said that for a society to work, its people must recognize what it is they have in common. Radio used to do so, and maybe it can do it again.

Oh how I miss the radio I grew up with! Like most people these days I have become extremely disenchanted with most of commercial radio. I lament the fact that the consolidation of broadcast media has left many towns with almost no local radio programming at all. I wonder how this sad state of affairs came to be. "Something In The Air" traces the evolution of this venerable medium from its inception in the early 1920's until today. Marc Fisher does an outstanding job of guiding his readers through all of the twists and turns that radio has taken over the past 75 years. He not only documents what happened but he also does a fine job of explaining the reasons why all of these changes took place.

In the early days of radio, networks dominated the airwaves. In most cities, there were only a few hours each day devoted to local programming. Most of the rest of the broadcast day was filled by an assortment of programming from NBC and CBS. Over the next three decades listeners were treated to a wide variety of network programming including musical shows, variety shows, news and sports broadcasts, soap operas and situation comedies. Particular radio programs became appointment listening. For most folks in this country radio was largely a shared experience.
All of this began to change in he early 1950's when the new medium of television began to gain a mass audience. Most radio performers could see the handwriting on the wall and quickly jumped over to television.

Suddenly there was a huge void of programming on the radio dial. Enter one Todd Stortz of Omaha, NE who had a new vision for radio. Indeed it was Todd Stortz who came up with the concept of Top 40 radio. I was fascinated by Marc Fisher's account of how this format was conceived and promoted by Stortz. Although I have been a radio buff all of my life this is a story I had really never heard. It is fascinating reading! For the next three decades it would be the Top 40 sound that would dominate the airwaves. This is the radio most baby boomers like myself grew up with. Radio had become much more of a local proposition. It seems that we all had our favorite disc jockeys and most of the kids I knew relished the wide variety of music on the radio in those days. It was an exciting time to be a teen! But the reality was that the radio audience had begun to fragment. Even before Top 40 began to fade in the mid to late 1970's listeners were casting about for new and different programming on the radio. Marc Fisher goes on to document the evolution of talk radio, public radio, album-oriented rock, the emergence of "shock" jocks and a whole host of other formats that have been attempted over the years. Towards the end of the book, Fisher also discusses innovative new offerings such as satellite and HD radio. Unfortunately, it seems like the radio audience is more fragmented than ever and Fisher points his finger directly at consultants and the aforementioned media consolidation as the main culprits.

Today radio is dominated by the likes of media giants Clear Channel, Cumulus, Infinity and Citadel who combined own more than half of the radio stations in this country. A large portion of local programming has been replaced by dreary syndicated offerings. Many of us wonder what will become of it all. Is radio even worth listening to anymore? Yet for all of its flaws and all of our complaining we still do listen. The average adult in this country tunes in for about three hours each day. Marc Fisher speculates what the future might be for radio. With so many alternatives now available to each of us it is hard to imagine that radio will ever again be the shared experience that so many people long for. I found "Something In The Air" to be one of the more entertaining books I have read in recent months. It is a book that should appeal to people of all ages. This one is extremely well written and very informative to boot. Highly recommended!

Ever get a book so good you read it all in one sitting? This book is that good, and not just for radio fans like myself (I have been a college station DJ for 26 years and am active on radio messageboards on the Net). When TV came along many thought it was death knell for radio, but the wireless adapted into pop/rock radio, talk stations, and various other formats. Radio was everywhere--when we woke up and had breakfast, during our commutes and at work, and during leisure time, providing us with music and information.

Fisher's book covers everyone from Cousin Brucie Morrow to Lee Abrams
and Tom Donuhue; talk hosts like Howard Stern, Rush Limbaugh, and Tom
Leykis; the storyteller Jean "A Christmas Story" Shepherd; Bob Fass of
WBAI and his pals Abbie and Arlo ("Alice's Restaurant" developed on
Fass's show) and it comes into the present where terrestrial radio
gets competition from the likes of mp3 players and satellite radio,
and revised ownership rules have resulted in job cutbacks/consolidation
and a more homogenized, less local product.

From the transistor radio you listened to under the pillow of your
bed to streamcasts on the Net, Fisher covers it all, and extremely
well. Excelsior!

As someone in radio, let me tell you this: if you'd like to get into the business, in this day and age no classroom, teacher, textbook or program director can give you as much as this book by Marc Fisher. Those already in radio will be entertained and informed. I was just starting my radio career when the current corporate culture of voice-tracking and conglomerate ownership of cookie-cutter radio overtook the business and took away most of its soul. Fisher makes you really appreciate what radio used to be, the era of personality radio, and makes you long for it to be that way again. When DJs programmed their own music, picked and chose what commercials they would play and when...and were even allowed to discuss relatively controversial opinions and spontaneously throw guests on the air at their whim. I have gained a better appreciation for the pioneers of radio.

I haven't listened to the radio since the Telecommunications Act destroyed radio as we knew it. My favorite stations quickly appealed to the lowest common denominator and I had to search elsewhere to keep up with music. Fisher's book shows the fascinating history of a medium that once was central in our lives (to anyone of a certain age). It's hard to imagine how revolutionary it was to have a station playing the same songs more than ONCE a day!!! Who knew that Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" was the perfect 70's song, according to focus groups? Now I know why the local oldies stations plays the same Motown songs over and over. I remember as a kid listening to Casey Kasem's Top 40 and writing down the song titles to see how far my favorites would go up the charts. Now, radio is just one choice among many for young people, but for those of us who remember, radio was once the center of our lives. Reading "Something in the Air" is like taking a trip back in time down the radio dial.

For anyone who's interested in the history & future of radio,look no further-Marc Fisher has written the ultimate history of the medium-Definitely worth your time & money.

Fisher's history of radio stretches from the medium's shove from the living room (by TV) in the late `40s to its shove aside by the internet and iPod. In between he chronicles the social, political and business forces that led to radio broadcasting's multiple re-inventions. The breadth of Fisher's focus is both a blessing and a curse: by taking in 60 years he's able to show common patterns and the relentless force of commerce, but by telling the story in vignettes of personalities, there's ten times as much omitted as included. What comes across by book's end is that Fisher is a better analyst than he is a storyteller. His descriptions of seminal radio people never quite reach the level of excitement or magnetism of their subjects, and his New Yorker styled interwoven narratives are often more frustrating than compelling. Fisher's bias to the East Coast, and to New York radio in particular, is obvious, and his lengthy discourses on Jean Shepherd and Bob Fass will be interminable to many. Better are his profiles of those who were behind-the-mic forces, such as consultant Lee Abrams. His analysis of radio as a numbers game, and the confluence of surveys, statistics and deregulation make the second half of the book a winner. His description of how the fragmentation of radio formats in the 1970s has come back to haunt oldies radio is particularly enlightening. Over and over he describes how the inexorable march of commerce rules radio, and how research-oriented programming drove radio into a dead-end. This is worthwhile reading, but more for the analysis than the profiles. 3-1/2 stars, if allowed fractional ratings. [©2008 hyperbolium dot com]

This is less a review and more an enthusiastic recommendation. As a Brit, many of the presenters' names in this book (apart from, say, Stern and Limbaugh) meant little to me but I still found this book absolutely unputdownable. This is testament to a) my radio "geekiness" and - more importantly - b) Marc Fisher's skills as a writer, historian and storyteller. A fascinating history of radio in the US with many a good story tucked away in the endnotes. Highly recommended.

Everyone should read this compelling book by Marc Fisher. It brilliantly uses radio to tell the story of Americans in the last several decades. Funny, powerful, commanding, and lyrical, Fisher is a beautiful storyteller.

Nobody has ever written a book this entertaining about radio. This book was so good that I turned off E Street Radio (on Sirius) just so I could concentrate more. Mr. Fisher has a future in radio *and* writing.