Another Perspective: Top 20s from Three Modern Rock Stations in 1984

Facing imminent bankruptcy, KROQ signed off the air in 1974 after the entire staff walked out after their paychecks had bounced. Again. The last song played was Elton John's "Funeral For A Friend". The FCC ordered the station's owners to return to the airwaves or forfeit their broadcasting licenses. Shadoe Stevens, one of the staffers who had walked out, was brought back as programming consultant/on-air personality and KROQ returned to the airwaves in 1976, playing a unique mix of contemporary rock and the new punk stuff. Rodney Bingenheimer soon came onboard and began playing local bands as well as many other bands that were not getting airplay on any other stations in the second largest radio market in the country. Shadoe departed again and management brought in Rick Carroll as program director in 1979 just as the New Wave began to rise. Carroll applied the Top 40 segmented format to the new music and a magic formula was created. Soon the station became the most powerful and influential station in all the land. Rick Carroll took a victory lap up and down the West Coast, spreading his Rock of the 80s formula to other stations.

In 1983, Carroll landed at 91X, a Mexican album-oriented rock (AOR) station serving the San Diego market, with American DJs commuting across the border for their shifts. On January 11, 1983, 91X played "Stairway To Heaven" and then announced on-air "This is 91X - Rock of the 80s and this is "Sex" from Berlin" and everyone in the studio at the time hated the weird, slow song they were hearing until someone noticed it was a twelve-inch 45rpm record being played at 33 1/3!

Meanwhile, more than a thousand miles away in the Midwest, 97.7 WOXY reportedly became only the sixth station in the nation to switch to the Modern Rock format in 1983, announcing the change to their Cincinnati/Dayton market by playing U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and the tagline "97X, Bam! The future of rock and roll!"

In 1984, all three stations aired year-end, listener-voted countdowns and the Top 20 from each station is included in the chart below with songs listed alphabetically by title. Of the forty-five different songs, only four appeared on all three lists:

	ROQ	91X	97X
		14		All Cried Out	Alsion Moyet
		13		Blasphemous Rumors	Depeche Mode
		18	19	Blue Jean	David Bowie
	13			Cow Punk	Scott Goddard
			13	Cruel Summer	Bananarama
	17			Dazzle	Siouxsie and the Banshees
	5			Erotic City	Prince
		19		Flesh For Fantasy	Billy Idol
			8	Girls Just Wanna Have Fun	Cyndi Lauper
			18	Heaven Is Waiting	Danse Society
			14	Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now	The Smiths
			11	Here Comes The Rain Again	Eurythmics
	10		17	Hold Me Now	Thompson Twins
			7	I Love You, Suzanne	Lou Reed
		9	9	I Send A Message	INXS
	7			Ladykiller	The Vandals
	14			Less Cities, More Moving People	The Fixx
			3	Let's Go Crazy	Prince
		15		Like to Get to Know You Well	Howard Jones
		17		Love Resurrection	Alison Moyet
	16	5		Master and Servant	Depeche Mode
	19			Original Sin	INXS
	12	11	20	People Are People	Depeche Mode
	3	2	2	Pride (In the Name of Love)	U2
	8			Rebel Yell	Billy Idol
	1	8	5	Relax	Frankie Goes To Hollywood
		4		Seven Seas	Echo and the Bunnymen
	15			Sexcrime 1984	Eurythmics
			12	Shake Dog Shake	The Cure
			16	Swimming Horses	Siouxsie and the Banshees
			15	Take Me With U	Prince
	2	1		Tenderness	General Public
		6		The Gap	Thompson Twins
	9			The Killing Moon	Echo and the Bunnymen
		3	4	The Wild Boys	Duran Duran
	6	16	1	Two Tribes	Frankie Goes To Hollywood
			10	Union Of The Snake	Duran Duran
	20	7		Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go	Wham!
	11			West End Girls	Pet Shop Boys
		10		What is Love	Howard Jones
	18			What's Gone Wrong	The Untouchables
	4			Why?	Bronski Beat
		20		Wild Life	Bananarama
			6	Wind Out	R.E.M.
		12		Wood Beez	Scritti Politti
				106.7 KROQ - Los Angeles, CA
				91.1 XETRA - Tijuana, MX / San Diego, CA
				97.7 WOXY - Oxford, OH

this post wouldn't be possible without:

• 45 scans from discogs.com
• craigfroehle.com devoted to WOXY
• RadioHitList.com
• RockLists.com
• Adam Gimbel's yerdoinggreat, where among other things he shares his remarkable 91X archives like this, the first three hours of 91X from that fateful day in January 1983 in Carroll's adapted "hot clock" format:

The way I read it, they started with the announcement coming out of "Stairway To Heaven" straight up at the top at the 1 position then played "Sex", "London Calling" (the next song marked 6) and "Pass The Dutchie" in that order clockwise around the diagram, first playing all the songs marked with a 6 for the 6PM hour then all the songs marked 7 for 7PM and so on. Every slice of the pie represents 4 minutes of airtime, more or less. Of course, there is a corresponding playlist.