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, F Machine released their one and only album, Here Comes the 21st Century. The band was promoted in the music press as primarily a new musical endeavor for Simon Fellowes, a member of the new wave band Intaferon who had released a couple largely ignored solo albums under the moniker Simon F. No matter how forcefully Reprise Records pushed the new album, Here Comes the 21st Century was destined to be similarly disregarded by the masses. I know of at least one radio programmer who was ready to champion the album shortly after it was sent out. That would be me.

I spent the warm months of that Upper Midwestern season serving as the program director at WWSP-90FM, the student-run radio station housed at the institution of higher learning where I was toiling away at my undergraduate degree. In that capacity at that time, processing the new records that came through was one of the happy, time-consuming requirements. We probably added anywhere from five to fifteen new albums to our rotation every week, and all those two-sided efforts needed to be reviewed for both their quality and their appropriateness for airplay. We also affixed a sticker to each album cover that included the briefest of reviews. When I took my pass at F Machine’s Here Comes the 21st Century, I scrawled some sort of superlative statement. I think I specifically identified it as “the best of the week,” phrasing I wouldn’t usually employ, but something about the album struck me. In retrospect, I think it was simply that it was markedly different that most of what had come through lately.

The following week, I tallied up the spins for all the albums in our new music rotation and was surprised to discover that Here Comes the 21st Century got played more than anything else. Initially, the album nabbing the top spot on our weekly chart didn’t make much sense to me. F machine (nor Simon F) wasn’t an act likely to command that sort of quick interest from on on-air staff, who were far more likely to give established favorites the sort of pervasive playlist placement that added up to a #1. Then, I realized it was a result of my complimentary sentences. A sizable percentage of our DJs must have flipped through the newest records, read that rave, and decided to give the unknown quantity a whirl.

My theory was resoundingly validated the following week, when F Machine, still in our heavy rotation, plummeted down our weekly chart, almost falling off of it altogether. My fellow 90FM staffers didn’t agree with my admittedly excessive exuberance and determined Here Comes the 21st Century didn’t merit a second sampling. I had done the album no favors by overselling its quality. If the the DJs had discovered the album without the added urging, they might have heard the same cool, catchy pop music I heard in the first place instead of something that didn’t strike them as rising to the designation of “best of the week.”

When I’m back in that familiar main studio tomorrow night for the annual 90FM Reunion Weekend, I’m going to need to look for Here Comes the 21st Century among the stacks. I don’t think it’s there any longer, but I hope I’m wrong about that. I owe it at least one more play.

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