Master Index of Archived Threads


30 Years of Top 40 in NYC

G-Fafif Aug 02 2013 04:43 PM

Today is Z-100's 30th birthday. Their founding occurred on one of those dates seared in my memory for reasons far surpassing my initial enthusiasm for the station that -- along with the format-flipped WPLJ -- brought genuine Top 40 back to New York radio. Their timing was exquisite, coming on the air just as the MTV boom was evolving from exposure for unknown artists of a one-hit wonder nature (if not strictly one-hitters) to inflating the star power of established artists. Look at the station's first survey. Sure, there are the contemporary names you'd expect if you experienced that era, but also Elton John, Rod Stewart, the Kinks, Donna Summer, each of them getting a second wind, whether fleeting or lasting. My particular fascination with Z-100 in its early days tied to Scott Shannon as its guiding light. I'd heard Shannon co-host AM drive and run the undisputed No. 1 station in Tampa Bay when I was in college. That was his previous stop. As a sophisticated New Yorker, I found Q-105 and its Q Morning Zoo grating and hopelessly unsophisticated (though I listened a lot because, c'mon, it was Tampa). Suddenly, here's this same guy with some atrocity called the Z Morning Zoo on here while I was home during the summer. I listened to his very first show. And I thought, "no fucking way does this clown make it in New York." I could see the playlist filling a void -- prior to July's switch of PLJ, the closest thing you had to CHR in the market was Adult Contemporary WNBC and WYNY -- but the sound was just all wrong for the big city. Too corny, too hacky, too overwrought. It was Tampa radio adjusted to some Tampa guy's idea of what New York wanted. By fall, it was the No. 1 station in the market. Then Madonna blew up, Prince intensified, Bruce crossed over (not a long way to cross by then) and Z-100 was in a perfect position to ride the coattails (or stoke the flames) of the revived Top 40 surge. Thirty years later, it's apparently doing quite well. I've been known to listen off and on now and then since 1983. So much for my radio consulting career.

Nymr83 Aug 02 2013 06:32 PM Re: 30 Years of Top 40 in NYC

I can't stand z100 anymore.

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr Aug 02 2013 10:34 PM Re: 30 Years of Top 40 in NYC

I remember listening to the "Zoo" for a little while when I was a kid, because I liked Prince and Madonna, and I kinda liked prank phone calls. I stopped after a few months. I remember thinking, "Jeez, this is dopey, and kinda noisy." If I recall correctly, I was something like 8 or 9.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Aug 02 2013 10:41 PM Re: 30 Years of Top 40 in NYC

I've never listened to that station in my life. #KlassikRawk4Eva

Mets – Willets Point Aug 03 2013 12:15 PM Re: 30 Years of Top 40 in NYC

I was a big adherent of Z-100 and the Z-Morning Zoo from the fall of '83 through my junior high school years and right up to 1987 when I started high school. Then I got sick of hearing the same Whitney Houston songs over and over and switched to K-Rock and began my classic rock phase.

Edgy MD Aug 03 2013 09:55 PM Re: 30 Years of Top 40 in NYC

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I've never listened to that station in my life. #KlassikRawk4Eva What was wrong with AM Top 40 anyhow?

Mets – Willets Point Aug 03 2013 10:57 PM Re: 30 Years of Top 40 in NYC

Edgy MD wrote: John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I've never listened to that station in my life. #KlassikRawk4Eva What was wrong with AM Top 40 anyhow? Before I listened to Z100, I listened to WNBC 660-AM back when they had Imus in the Morning, Howard Stern in the afternoon, and they both still played Top 40 music instead of talking all the time.

G-Fafif Aug 04 2013 09:46 AM Re: 30 Years of Top 40 in NYC

WNBC played much of the same music as WABC in the late '70s and early '80s but their heart was never really in being a Top 40 station in terms of youthful energy. (Listening to Howard Stern shred his station's playlist was one of the great tearing down of walls in the history of electronic media.) They had more of a WNEW-AM sound, except with current records. Yet they were all that was left on AM once 'ABC switched to talk, though they were really more AC than CHR (acronym fever!). WYNY and WPIX also played contemporary hits, on FM, in 1983 but from an increasingly adult vantage point. The former 99X had gone "urban" a few years earlier. 'KTU was still dance-oriented. Thus the void.

Ashie62 Aug 04 2013 03:37 PM Re: 30 Years of Top 40 in NYC

Casey Kassem here...