This series of posts covers my long, beloved history interacting with the medium of radio, including the music that flowed through the airwaves.

Thirty-five years ago, in the summer of 1989, “Weird Al” Yankovic starred in the movie UHF and released a companion album of the same name. As the name implies, UHF – Original Motion Picture Soundtrack and Other Stuff has songs that appear in the film comedy and a hearty helping of extra tracks that Yankovic recorded. For those of us keeping the transmitter warm at our college radio station that summer, it was one of those latter offerings that we found irresistible. Many a playlist at that time included “Spam.”

A little extra context might be helpful. Most of us staffing the college radio station at that point in time were hovering around the age of twenty, which means we were the first generation that had “Weird Al” as our gateway to pop music. When we were in the midst of our individual journeys across the long Rubicon from “C Is for Cookie” to “Love Will Tear Us Apart,” “Weird Al” was there to serve both parts of our inner beings. His parodies of hits were unapologetically silly, but they also served the original songs, meticulously recreating the rhythms, tones, textures, and structures. As we grew up and adjusted our cultural perspectives, “Weird Al” provided an especially delightful answer key to what made pop music zoom.

Almost by definition, though, “Weird Al” wasn’t cool. And many of us who tacked our FCC radiotelephone operator permits to the walls of a college radio were deeply, intensely interested in being — or at least appearing — cool. Even if we wanted to pay tribute to our younger selves by playing a “Weird Al” song on the radio, that material didn’t really meet what we saw as our broadcasting mandate. Then, there towards the end of side two of UHF was a parody of an R.E.M. song, released right at the point that the Athens, Georgia band were the undisputed heavyweight champs of college radio.

“Spam” spoofed “Stand,” a track from R.E.M.’s album Green, which had been released only eight months earlier. “Stand” was released as a single in January 1989 and peaked in the Billboard Top 10 in early April. The “Weird Al” track couldn’t be more immediately relevant to us. (He recorded it in late May, less than two months before the record was released.) “Stand,” as a recent Top 40 hit, was technically banned from our airwaves, so the “Weird Al” version carried the bonus of allowing us to sort of play a song that many of still loved. How could we not play it?

As I mull song selection to stock my on-air shift during the upcoming 90FM Reunion Weekend, “Spam” is a nice reminder that all the serious, intense, heavy-mood modern rock music we played back in the day was occasionally counterbalanced by pure, frothy fun. College DJs can’t live by the Cure alone. Sometimes, you need a little “Spam.”

Previous entries in this series can be found by clicking on the “Radio Days” tag.