I was recently reading a list called "What White People Like" and 80s music was there. The reason? Apparently, White People like to listen to 80's music because it was the last time "real music" of the pop variety existed.
But I doubt this is 97.3FM's reason for focusing on 80s music. Instead, I think this station's 80's music fans are more of the unabashed "I love Madonna" type. No one's trying to be hip here by claiming the 80's were cool. (Come on.) 97.3FM is for people probably of my generation who list Dirty Dancing as their favourite movie, and like to car-jack their friends.
This was evidenced when my friend (who for lack of privacy reasons I'll call by her real name, Julie) texted me every time Wilson Phillip's "Hold On" came on the station, which happened to be very often. As the "97.3!!! Turn it on now!" texts built up over the years, I was recently offered a car lift from Seemingly Nice But Secretly Sadistic Julie. When I got in, 97.3FM wasn't playing as usual, so all signs pointed to good. Then she locked the car doors, went for the DVD player and forced me to listen to "Hold On" for its entire duration. I consider this car-jacking. (Still love you, JJ. But I'm going to Mambo No. 5* your arse at the next available opportunity.)
Speaking of which, Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega is something you might hear on 97.3 FM when the younger crowd is listening (night time). At other times I've heard "Endless Love" by Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross, as there seems to be Golden Oldies hours. (97.3FM is like the FM equivalent of AM radio.) There's also I admit some decent 80s music (so says the Clichéd White Girl), such as stuff by Duran Duran, the Go Go's, Texas and Robert Palmer. Come on, some of his stuff was OK.
*Julie's least favourite song of all time and consistently nominated highly amongst Songs That Get Stuck In Your Head lists across the internet. "A little bit of Monica in my life, a little bit of Erica by my side...." read more