Once the music came second to the visual the music seemed an afterthought. A catchy hook and the right look became the formula. Not that there weren't a few good songs along the way but without a video people wanted to see there wasn't much chance of a song rising to the top.
I remember back in the day barely being able to wait for an album to arrive at the Five and Dime in my little midwestern town so that I could find out what the musicians/singers/bands looked like. How else was I going to see the people I was listening to on the late night transmissions from KAAY. Oddly, a station in Arkansas that boosted its signal late at night and played the stuff the top 40 stations weren't playing. Our other fix for 'not top 40' was WLS out of Chicago. So we waited and memorized the album covers and felt cheated when there were no, or few, photos. How else was I going to know what Jim Dandy looked like if it weren't for an album cover - Black Oak Arkansas wasn't exactly the kind of act for American Bandstand.
I remember back in the day barely being able to wait for an album to arrive at the Five and Dime in my little midwestern town so that I could find out what the musicians/singers/bands looked like. How else was I going to see the people I was listening to on the late night transmissions from KAAY. Oddly, a station in Arkansas that boosted its signal late at night and played the stuff the top 40 stations weren't playing. Our other fix for 'not top 40' was WLS out of Chicago. So we waited and memorized the album covers and felt cheated when there were no, or few, photos. How else was I going to know what Jim Dandy looked like if it weren't for an album cover - Black Oak Arkansas wasn't exactly the kind of act for American Bandstand.
“If you are the smartest person in the room, then you are in the wrong room.” — Confucius
