Better With Age – Blog post by Phil Nee

This Saturday night during our Those Were the Days radio show on WRCO, I will spin a few tunes that are more popular years after they were released. In other words, they have gotten better with age. I can say the same for poor old grey haired d.j.’s. In radio you hope that you get better every time you are on the air. Now that I have logged 30 to 40 thousand hours on the air, I should be better than I am! When I hear tapes of my programs from years ago, I sometimes can’t believe what I said. It does sound like the tape is playing at the wrong speed. That must mean that I have finally reached puberty as my voice has lowered through the years.

Even though a song like Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond was a top 10 hit when it was released, it is now known worldwide. It warms my heart when I see a huge section of high school kids at a sporting event singing the chorus at the top of their lungs. Mr. Blue Sky by ELO was a modest hit back in the day, but now it is the groups most downloaded song. The Badfinger song Baby Blue was a hit in 1972 but became a huge download after it was used in the show Breaking Bad. I will look at some of these examples during this week’s Those Were the Days radio show on WRCO, WRCO.com, and on the Civic Media app. There are many songs that were not popular when first released but are now such as Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen and Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man. The idea for this week’s theme, came from a loyal listener. If you have an idea for a future theme, please let me know.

I hope you will join the fun this Saturday night when the request line will be open, and we will be taking your requests for music from the first vinyl era. Make sure to tell your friends and I will keep trying to do a better job. Since I have been hosting Those Were the Days since 1986, one of these years I might finally get it.

Phil

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