#90s radio

[shanaraharlyah]

Spotify added the '99 live version of From This Moment On featuring Backstreet Boys, so I finally have an accurate reproduction of this radio mixed tape! Yay! 💙🤍💙

[codesquire]

Man, 90s Oldies radio...

[louisepalanker]

The Premiere News & World Report: 

A Radio, Records and Publishing Time Capsule 

Travel back with me to a time before the internet. Before computers. Before spellcheck. Journey with me to a land called Hollywood where a scrappy team of talented misfits cranked out programming and materials which were distributed around the globe via the U.S. mail to local radio stations.

That was Premiere Radio Networks in the late eighties and the nineties. Somehow, in addition to countdown shows, talk shows, weekly parody songs, funny commercials, interactive characters, celebrity interviews and monologue jokes we also published a weekly newsletter which we called the Premiere News & World Report (before receiving a cease and desist from the U.S. News & World Report)

These hand crafted rags offer worthy historical record of 90s radio, music and pop culture. They also provide me with a sort of journal, documenting the adventures enjoyed and bonds treasured during our early days together at Premiere Radio.

Much of the content you’ll find in these newsletters is cringe inducing by today’s standards. Should we look back at what we wrote years ago in awe, shame or wonder? Exhibit a) I am currently staring at a headline which reads:

BATTERED LESBIANS ON STEROIDS: A LOVE STORY

This is now, of course, several layers of wrong, but it serves as a healthy example of either how far we’ve come or how little we knew about each other back then.

I am including this edition here for you today, also because it features our truly darling annual Christmas card contest winners. Fun and funny for the following reasons.

1. We were desperately naive as to the eventual importance of Ashley Judd.

2. There really was a guy who called himself “Gay Boy Ric” who advertised his phone number in Billboard Magazine. He changed his outgoing message every day so it was like a personal, little radio show and you could leave messages and then the next day he would give you a shout out. It was so good!

3. Michael Damian and his doggie. I mean, enough said.

OK, so we published these newsletters every week! I physically cut and pasted elements from my typewriter, pictures I snipped out of magazines and photos I took or in the case of this example, actual Christmas cards. I brought my ingredients down to a print shop in the lobby of the Motown building and walked into the back where they allowed me to use a layout table, a glue stick, scissors and rulers to construct our creation. This was then handed to the in-house team for printing.

Oh, also the “clip art” you see is generated by actual novelty stamps that I bought at an actual stamp store in Century City Plaza where you could buy stamps and ink pads!

We grabbed our stack of newsletters, printed out lables and held a good, old fashioned folding party every week in our Premiere conference room. The newsletters went out to all of our affiliate radio stations, and our contact list which included PR firms, record labels and celebrities we had interviewed.

Exhibit b) features an account of a day I spent in NYC at SNL, interviewing Dana Carvey, Jon Lovitz, Kevin Nealon, etc. I added them all to our mailing list. A few months later, I received exhibit c) a fax from legendary SNL writer Herb Sargent! It simply read:

"Hey, Can I get on your News & World Report mailing list?"

This fax hung proudly in my office in righteous defiance of Rob Schneider’s fax requesting removal from our list, sighting ecological concerns about wasted paper.

At Premiere we enjoyed relationships with lables, PR firms and radio stations and we really loved including folks in our newsletter by posing silly questions and having them respond. Exhibit d), is both an example of this practice while also condoning violence with the headline:

WHO YOU’D SLUG REVEALS YOUR PERSONALITY

These hundreds of newsletters were carefully curated by Helen Ledesma Bartolotti and I posted many of them to this Flickr album for you to peruse and enjoy.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/louisepalanker/albums/72157719283903510/with/51192751001/

Jam I must. Go read the rest of your newsfeed.

[nikolaialeksandrovna]

I love my radio's ability to cheer me up

Iggy Pop - Lust for Life Nirvana - Heart Shaped Box Ocean Colour Scene - Day We Caught the Train Oasis - Slide Away

[lostandsoundmusic]

“Remember, old music doesn’t suck.”

A gem of a find, deep in the UCLA Radio cabinets: OG Atlantic Records/Atco soul. Reviewed by a UCLA DJ from 1991.

[corpsecamping]

Shoobiedoo op and scoobie snacks I met a fly girl and I can't relax

[roadmovies]

mixtape #24: fuck man, sometimes I just miss 90's radio.

1. Third Eye Blind - Semi-Charmed Life

2. Marcy Playground - Sexy and Candy

3. Goo Goo Dolls - Iris

4. Alanis Morissette  - You Oughta Know

5. Barenaked Ladies - Brian Wilson

6. Natalie Imbruglia - Torn

7. Spin Doctors - Two Princes

8. Oasis  - Wonderwall

9. Semisonic - Closing Time 

10. Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2U

11. Train - Drops Of Jupiter

12. No Doubt - Sunday Morning

special bonus track: jimmy ray - are you jimmy ray? :P