I wanted to post here to remember what might have been Sacramento's shortest-lived format but one that had a HUGE influence on my music taste ever since. Rock of the 80s was a format consisting mainly of new wave music including synth-pop, punk, ska and some reggae created by Rick Carroll who had worked at KPOP previously and later sold them the format after launching it on KROQ in Los Angeles most famously and also KQAK The Quake in San Francisco. I'm not sure what the format on KPOP was prior (I know it was disco and then R&B for a while) but when I first tuned in during summer 1983 it seemed like top 40 with some "deeper" tracks thrown in- I heard the long version of Taco's "Puttin' on the Ritz" when the other stations were playing the shortened version, and an odd Culture Club track for example. They played a few promo spots announcing that they would become "Rock of the 80s" on August 1st but didn't really explain what that meant. I was curious though- our family went on a vacation the last few weeks of July and into August but as soon as we got back I tuned in.
I was going into 5th grade at the time for reference; my regular station at the time was KWOD but I was getting fed up with their repetitiveness and especially how most stations would only play the "hit" songs, released as singles, and not the other tracks from albums. It was especially insulting when KWOD would play one song off a new album for a while and then later play one other song and call that the "latest" from that artist, when I knew it had already been on the album for months and they should have been playing it already. I heard a few familiar songs and groups on this new "Rock of the 80s" station, but what kept me hooked was that they didn't stick to just their "hit" songs. Men Without Hats was a great example- every station was playing "Safety Dance" over and over, but KPOP was playing other tracks off their album like "Antarctica" and "The Great Ones Remember". Spandau Ballet had a hit in the US with the sappy ballad "True" which fit in mainly on adult contemporary stations, but KPOP was playing several other songs from them which showed that wasn't their usual sound. I got introduced to tons of other artists the other stations would never touch, but some got more popular years later- The Cure, U2, Thompson Twins and the B-52s but also some real previously-unknowns like the Ramones, Toy Dolls, Shriekback, The Jam, Missing Persons, Yello, and Berlin- some which might have been on MTV then but we didn't even have that available. Another incredible thing about how this station was programmed was that on Sunday mornings they would play three entire ALBUMS all the way through, not even talking in between songs. Some of this music was a bit strange to me at first but I grew to love it, but just as I was ready to declare that love in January 1984, the station suddenly flipped to top 40. One night I fell asleep to a live recording of Spandau Ballet playing "Gold," the next day I heard Lionel Richie, Kool and the Gang and Barry Manilow. They had kept all of the same DJs but they sounded like they had been lobotomized- before they were sounding laid-back and "cool" as they introduced me to all this intriguing new music, now they had an outright phoniness to them.
I was heartbroken- we already had 2 "hit music" stations in the area, why would a station doing something new and different suddenly decide to give us more of the same? I was pretty shy back then and afraid to make phone calls, but I called up the station just asking what had happened to Rock of the 80s and was told "Not enough people were listening to it." Aside from a few cancelled TV shows, it was my first lesson in the taste of the general public. I was hooked on this music at this point, I saw most of the more popular music as "lame" and "fake" and could never go back to that. I was able to pick up The Quake from San Francisco at least and in fact had sampled that during KPOP's short life to compare how they were doing the format. That at least lasted another year and a half so I got to keep hearing my now-favorite songs and plenty of new ones, plus experience the sheer genius of Alex Bennett in the morning. I'd occasionally check back on KPOP and it hurt to hear Olivia Newton-John and Journey on the frequency where I had once heard all of these incredibly new and different sounds. A few kids I knew at school had started listening to them after the format change and I stopped being friends with them as a result (hey, I was 11 so cut me a bit of slack!) At least this format didn't turn out to be very successful either however as it became "93 Rock" in 1986 (which I didn't like a lot and was no replacement for what they had been, but was still better than top 40) and soon moved frequencies to 93.7.
In June 1985 The Quake was sold and flipped to a different format (called The City) that was still high-quality, not top 40, but I wasn't quite old enough to really appreciate it then. With no internet and no MTV I was pretty much in the dark music-wise after that and too poor to blind-buy records on my own; in 1986 (after KPOP became 93 Rock) I was elated and amazed that KITS in San Francisco had actually DROPPED top 40 for a return to my favorite format which they soon renamed "Modern Rock", but it was nearly impossible to pick up where I was. I listened to it whenever I could though, and in 1991 KWOD also dropped top 40 for an attempt at a modern rock format which they were never really great at but then grunge soon came along and took over pretty much every station with this format squeezing out the synth stuff which I much preferred. (I couldn't even stand to listen to Live 105 after this and didn't care when they flipped to "Dave FM", their recent "return" is still a bore to me.)
It's hard to find much online about KPOP as that name now mainly means Korean pop music, but I wanted to give them some recognition now 40 years later. It was sad how short-lived it was, lasting only five months, but during those five months they made a huge impression on my musical taste and although I've grown to appreciate other music (even Journey and Lionel Richie!) for what it is, the music of this format remains my absolute favorite and I might not have discovered it without this station. The first DJ there I got familiar with was Carmy Ferreri who would usually call himself by his last name sounding like "Ferrari," I see he is still in the radio business today, I also remembered Zeb Norris who left the station shortly after the format change as he hated it and is now in Vermont; he friended me on Facebook a few years ago after I posted some memories of KPOP. Although I did record some of the complete albums they played, I cut out all of the DJs and commercials in between sides and never taped any straight sets of music- I wish I had and hope others did and those tapes will be unearthed eventually. My thanks go out to everyone who made this station possible, and absolutely no thanks whatsoever to those who killed it after only five months. I've met a few people who still fondly remember those five months (but never heard any fond memories of their top 40 days aside from the morning team of Robbins, Kinney and Cowan, who were no Alex Bennetts but two of them went on to somewhat great fame later) and hopefully someone will post some here.
I was going into 5th grade at the time for reference; my regular station at the time was KWOD but I was getting fed up with their repetitiveness and especially how most stations would only play the "hit" songs, released as singles, and not the other tracks from albums. It was especially insulting when KWOD would play one song off a new album for a while and then later play one other song and call that the "latest" from that artist, when I knew it had already been on the album for months and they should have been playing it already. I heard a few familiar songs and groups on this new "Rock of the 80s" station, but what kept me hooked was that they didn't stick to just their "hit" songs. Men Without Hats was a great example- every station was playing "Safety Dance" over and over, but KPOP was playing other tracks off their album like "Antarctica" and "The Great Ones Remember". Spandau Ballet had a hit in the US with the sappy ballad "True" which fit in mainly on adult contemporary stations, but KPOP was playing several other songs from them which showed that wasn't their usual sound. I got introduced to tons of other artists the other stations would never touch, but some got more popular years later- The Cure, U2, Thompson Twins and the B-52s but also some real previously-unknowns like the Ramones, Toy Dolls, Shriekback, The Jam, Missing Persons, Yello, and Berlin- some which might have been on MTV then but we didn't even have that available. Another incredible thing about how this station was programmed was that on Sunday mornings they would play three entire ALBUMS all the way through, not even talking in between songs. Some of this music was a bit strange to me at first but I grew to love it, but just as I was ready to declare that love in January 1984, the station suddenly flipped to top 40. One night I fell asleep to a live recording of Spandau Ballet playing "Gold," the next day I heard Lionel Richie, Kool and the Gang and Barry Manilow. They had kept all of the same DJs but they sounded like they had been lobotomized- before they were sounding laid-back and "cool" as they introduced me to all this intriguing new music, now they had an outright phoniness to them.
I was heartbroken- we already had 2 "hit music" stations in the area, why would a station doing something new and different suddenly decide to give us more of the same? I was pretty shy back then and afraid to make phone calls, but I called up the station just asking what had happened to Rock of the 80s and was told "Not enough people were listening to it." Aside from a few cancelled TV shows, it was my first lesson in the taste of the general public. I was hooked on this music at this point, I saw most of the more popular music as "lame" and "fake" and could never go back to that. I was able to pick up The Quake from San Francisco at least and in fact had sampled that during KPOP's short life to compare how they were doing the format. That at least lasted another year and a half so I got to keep hearing my now-favorite songs and plenty of new ones, plus experience the sheer genius of Alex Bennett in the morning. I'd occasionally check back on KPOP and it hurt to hear Olivia Newton-John and Journey on the frequency where I had once heard all of these incredibly new and different sounds. A few kids I knew at school had started listening to them after the format change and I stopped being friends with them as a result (hey, I was 11 so cut me a bit of slack!) At least this format didn't turn out to be very successful either however as it became "93 Rock" in 1986 (which I didn't like a lot and was no replacement for what they had been, but was still better than top 40) and soon moved frequencies to 93.7.
In June 1985 The Quake was sold and flipped to a different format (called The City) that was still high-quality, not top 40, but I wasn't quite old enough to really appreciate it then. With no internet and no MTV I was pretty much in the dark music-wise after that and too poor to blind-buy records on my own; in 1986 (after KPOP became 93 Rock) I was elated and amazed that KITS in San Francisco had actually DROPPED top 40 for a return to my favorite format which they soon renamed "Modern Rock", but it was nearly impossible to pick up where I was. I listened to it whenever I could though, and in 1991 KWOD also dropped top 40 for an attempt at a modern rock format which they were never really great at but then grunge soon came along and took over pretty much every station with this format squeezing out the synth stuff which I much preferred. (I couldn't even stand to listen to Live 105 after this and didn't care when they flipped to "Dave FM", their recent "return" is still a bore to me.)
It's hard to find much online about KPOP as that name now mainly means Korean pop music, but I wanted to give them some recognition now 40 years later. It was sad how short-lived it was, lasting only five months, but during those five months they made a huge impression on my musical taste and although I've grown to appreciate other music (even Journey and Lionel Richie!) for what it is, the music of this format remains my absolute favorite and I might not have discovered it without this station. The first DJ there I got familiar with was Carmy Ferreri who would usually call himself by his last name sounding like "Ferrari," I see he is still in the radio business today, I also remembered Zeb Norris who left the station shortly after the format change as he hated it and is now in Vermont; he friended me on Facebook a few years ago after I posted some memories of KPOP. Although I did record some of the complete albums they played, I cut out all of the DJs and commercials in between sides and never taped any straight sets of music- I wish I had and hope others did and those tapes will be unearthed eventually. My thanks go out to everyone who made this station possible, and absolutely no thanks whatsoever to those who killed it after only five months. I've met a few people who still fondly remember those five months (but never heard any fond memories of their top 40 days aside from the morning team of Robbins, Kinney and Cowan, who were no Alex Bennetts but two of them went on to somewhat great fame later) and hopefully someone will post some here.
