1992-1993: The rhythm of my life

BBC Radio 1’s Essential Mix celebrated it’s silver anniversary this year.

Debuting on October 30, 1993, and hosted by Pete Tong, the Essential Mix features “[t]he world’s biggest DJs on the world’s biggest decks.” It presents an uninterrupted two-hour mix by a different electronic music artist every week. It is the world’s premier mix show, encouraging DJs to “flex their musical knowledge,” per Wikipedia. It is the longest running program on Radio 1 and the most listened to show on the station’s “listen again” feature. Every week, its worldwide fanbase tunes in, many recording the shows for listening (and sharing online) later.

Though I don’t listen to new Essential Mix episodes as much as I did a few years ago, the show is an icon. Its silver anniversary serves as another coincidence, because its inception coincided with the beginning of my personal revelation with music in 1992 and 1993.

Until 1992, I listened to what my parents listened to: mostly music from the fifties and sixties. The car radio and home stereo were always tuned to the local oldies station. I was exposed to newer music via movies, school, and riding in other peoples’ cars, but oldies were what I heard most. I like to joke that I did not know music was recorded after 1970 until I was nine. It’s almost true.

I was never adventurous and listened to anything else; my little radio was tuned to the same oldies station my parents listened to. However, that changed one afternoon in the late summer of 1992.

My dad, sister, and I were in downtown Iowa City with my uncle for some reason. My uncle had taken us there in his Chevy Citation, whose radio was positioned vertically in the dashboard—something I had never seen before or since. (I read somewhere that the Citation is the most recalled vehicle in history.) Regardless, it was tuned to something other than the oldies station, probably the incomparable Q103. Leaving downtown, sitting at the light at Iowa and Clinton, listening to something I had never heard before, I decided I was tired of listening to the same old stuff. I wanted to listen to something different for a change. So when we got home, I went to my room, turned on my little radio, and moved the tuner up and down the FM dial, searching for something other than the oldies I’d known all my life. I stopped when I found a station playing “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” by Tears for Fears, a song I knew from Real Genius.

I never tuned my radio to the oldies station again.

The radio station I found that day was Magic 96 out of Davenport. It changed its name to Mix 96 about a year later but kept the same format: adult contemporary, focusing on the hits of the eighties and nineties. It became my station and was an excellent introduction to the music recorded after 1970, though I doubt it played anything released before 1980. (The music of the 1970s was a mystery to me until I was 12, when the oldies station switched to album-oriented rock.) Magic/Mix 96 was my gateway to the music that became the soundtrack of my youth and helped me discover the rhythm of my life.

Mix 96 may not have rocked like KRNA or thumped like Q103, the premier Top 40 station in eastern Iowa, but it was just right for me at the time. Its playlist ranged from easy listening to pop to Eurodance. It played a lot of Sheryl Crow, Ace of Base, and Seal. It was tame and inoffensive. Though it was relatively soft, it was also energizing, especially on Saturday nights when it broadcast a dance music show live from a local club called Dancers. That show, along with Open House Party on Q103, introduced me to electronic dance music. I fell in love, despite the fact I’m not a dancer. I thought my parents wouldn’t approve, probably because it was so different from their cherished oldies, so I turned the volume on my Sony Dream Machine low enough so they couldn’t hear it as I listened deep into the night. I did the same thing when watching VH1 and MTV: I turned the volume low so they wouldn’t know what I was watching. (I was wrong about my parents. I doubt they would have cared, because they didn’t care when I listened to Judge Jules in high school. They didn’t understand the music, but they did not have a problem with me listening to what I wanted.)

I outgrew Mix 96 eventually, and my radio dial spent time up and down the FM band. It also spent time on AM. I tuned to Mix 96 to record eighties tunes on Backtrax USA during my awkward eighties phase, but I listened to other stations more, mostly the local Top 40s (Q103 at first, then KOKZ from Waterloo, and All High 98.9 from the Quad Cities) until I started listening to hard rock on KRNA and Rock 108 in high school.

I listen to a lot of electronic music these days, but I’d say my taste in music is eclectic and open-minded. I’ll listen to just about everything except country. (I can tolerate oldies from the fifties and sixties, but they annoy me quickly. The classic rock from the seventies and eighties that has been played ad nauseum is also starting to annoy me.) That open-mindedness can be traced back to that one afternoon in 1992, when I opened my ears to the varied styles and genres heard on contemporary hits radio.