Toaster's Ramblings... Lost 80's Music Edition

I have come to notice that there is a certain sizable slice of 80's music that you rarely if ever hear on the radio these days. Various hair metal acts now surface on classic rock stations, 80's pop like Michael Jackson and Madonna appear on easy listening or soft rock stations, old school rap pops up here and there and even New Wave will rear it's eccentric head on random dials at times. But the music I am talking about doesn't fit smoothly into a specific category.

I am referring to artists such as The Smiths, The Cure, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Pixies, Joy Division, New Order, Love and Rockets, The Cult, Tears For Fears, INXS, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Echo and the Bunnymen, Depeche Mode, The Cocteau Twins, My Bloody Valentine and so on. Some of them are Goth, but not all of them. A few could be New Wave, but not many. I kind of think of them as a “lost” genre. I believe it's because of how difficult it is to categorize these groups that they are seldom heard on the radio... and it's a damn shame.
Now there was a time when you could hear such bands on fledgling "alternative" stations in the very early 90's. Folks near the Detroit area may know the station 89X out of Windsor, Ontario. Before Alternative music became huge (ironically after the death of Kurt Cobain), 89X was a very different station. I remember hearing Tears For Fears at least every hour. This was due to the fact that they really didn't have much else to play. It was that odd time between the declining 80's music scene and the point where the 90’s musical explosion took place.

It seemed like overnight MTV (that’s Music Television to you Jersey Shore watching so and so’s) went from Def Leppard and Prince videos to Nirvana and Alice in Chains (somehow both Guns N’ Roses and Metallica held out for a few more years).  Soon following Grunge were Smashing Pumpkins, the Cranberries, Beck and Radiohead. Within a few years the Hip Hop scene had irreparably changed from the popularity of Gangsta Rap; then came Trip-Hop, Brit Pop, Techno and the rebirth of Punk, some of which were lumped into the Alternative music scene.

Fast forward to 2012 and Alternative has had around 20 years to build a catalog of music.  Not only do those aforementioned 80’s pre-alternative bands get lost in the shuffle, but even classic alternative tends to get left behind. Once in a while I will hear something from that “lost” genre on a station like The Edge (out of Lansing, I think) or 89X’s awesome “Time Warp” radio program on Sunday mornings that specializes in playing those older alternative and pre-alternative songs. In the late 90’s another radio station had a show on Sunday nights that Jonny Prophet and I loved called Big Sonic Heaven; it featured, among others, bands like The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Siouxsie and the Banshees and so on... but sadly that show is long gone.  For the most part, I seldom hear those great bands. I have to either make a playlist or burn a CD to hear them in my car.  

Granted my (and Jonny Prophet’s) tastes in music tend to deviate quite a bit from the mainstream radio anyways, so this lack of hearing what I really want to hear is nothing new. But there are a lot of teenagers that might love a band like The Cure or The Pixies, but have no idea who they are because they are never introduced to them. It seems sad that an entire sub-genre of music, some of it highly successful, can fall between the cracks of the mainstream and be lost for new generations to hear. I would love to see a daring radio station that plays what others don’t, that isn’t bound by corporate manufactured music but instead plays songs from groups of real diversity, range and dare I say… talent?  Many radio stations boast a mix of new and classic alternative, but I would like them to go deeper. Don’t settle of pop punk and the (recopied to the point of absolute blandness) clones of Creed. Unfortunately, what I am ultimately asking for is a radio station formed to my own specific taste in music. For that I will just have to settle for a massive MP3 playlist… and threatening letters. Those are bound to work sooner or later.