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 1990, Jellyfish released their debut album, Bellybutton. It was one of those albums that absolutely took over the playlists of WWSP-90FM, the college radio station that I happily turned my life over to during my undergraduate years.

Jellyfish wasn’t comprised of newcomers. Guitarist Jason Falkner previously held down the same duties in the Paisley Underground outfit the Three O’Clock, whose albums we definitely had in the radio station stacks, and frontman Andy Sturmer and keyboardist Roger Manning had been in the group Beatnik Beatch, who I don’t believe were accounted for the music library despite them putting out a full-length with Atlantic Records. We knew about that pedigree at our college radio station, but any active consideration of it was quickly usurped by adoration of this new band. It didn’t matter who they were before. They were Jellyfish now.

The songs on Bellybutton were an extension of the luxuriant retro pop that Falkner crafted with the Three O’Clock, imbued with deeper exuberance and delivered with more vibrant polish. There’s a kinship to the Sgt. Pepper-y expansiveness and piquant psychedelia practiced by XTC under the guise of the Dukes of Stratosphear. Jellyfish took it to a whole other level, though. If they had announced that material sprung fully formed from a whirling, paisley sun, it would have seemed a plausible story. There were singles from the album and they got plenty of attention from our on-air staff, but I remember Bellybutton as one of those releases where practically everything on it took a turn as a station favorite. If I circled back to one cut more than any other, it was probably “Baby’s Coming Back.” In its burrowing hook, tight musicianship, and big, bursting energy, it strikes me as the quintessential Bellybutton tune.

Sadly for me, I wasn’t at the station when Bellybutton first hit heavy rotation. During my five years as a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point student, I only had one protracted stretch when I wasn’t on the radio, attributable to the misguided decision to spend one summer at home with my family, painfully far away from the school. The release of Bellybutton fell later in that timespan. The album was still edging its way through the new music rotation when I returned, and I definitely made up for lost time by giving it plenty of spins and thereby contributing to its healthy placement on our weekly charts all the way through the fall.

Tonight, I’m taking my regular turn on the air as part of 90FM Reunion Weekend, and the nice, round-number anniversary of all the albums released during the summer of 1990 has got me thinking about that lost time during that particular school break. I’m going to play a lot of songs from that summer. Jellyfish is definitely on the list.

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