Post by Adrian on Jul 18, 2006 19:40:09 GMT -5
This is going to sound odd, like an AT40 record that Casey would say regarding the time spent between an act's very first Top 40 hit and then finally hitting #1 many years later, but it really applies in my case.
I grew up in Singapore and we've had AT40 on Rediffusion Singapore, which is best described as cable radio. I first heard the show back in 1974 when I was 9 years old and the first song I remembered hearing was "Rock The Boat" by the Hues Corporation. The song did hit #1 but it wasn't in that position when I first heard it. Problem was that I heard it at a friend's (also a neighbor) place, and couldn't listen to the rest of the show for one reason or another. It was difficult to listen to it at his place on a weekly basis because of various conflicting interests (my family, him, his family, etc) so at best I could only listen to parts of the show every now and then. I clamored my parents to get Rediffusion but they refused saying it wasn't worth subscribing it for just one program. Rediffusion was a stand-alone equipment so you couldn't connect it to say a tape player. You could tape it off the speakers but the sound would be very muffled, and that does not include all other sounds it would record around it. Besides, my friend wasn't that keen on listening to AT40 to begin with, and the couple of times he did tape for me, he would forget to flip the tape over, so parts of the show would be missing, especially the final hour. I finally gave up the experiment and any hope I would listen to AT40 in its entirety. Eventually in 1978, my friend moved to another area and we grew apart. Over the years, I would occasionally hear parts of AT40 at shopping malls, but that was it as far as listening to the show was concerned. While my interest in pop music never died, my interest in wanting to listen to AT40 eventually waned somewhat by then as other interests took up my time. Rediffusion was also losing subscribers over the years so it wasn't easy finding someone who also subscribed to Rediffusion, never mind the fact that they may not care for AT40 to begin with.
Eventually, one of the FM stations aired the show. In 1988. During that very first show heard on FM radio, Scott Evans was sitting in for Casey that week, and the #1 song I finally heard in its entirety was "Dirty Diana" by Michael Jackson. And get this. From the beginning of the show, I had to wait 3 days to listen to the #1 song being played. Let me explain. The station would put out each hour of the show from Monday through Thursday evening, and repeat the final hour on Sunday evening. But I figured that if I could wait 14 years to hear the #1 song on AT40, I could wait for another 3 days.
Ironically, I would only hear AT40 for another few weeks before I went overseas to pursue further education. You can imagine all the catching up I did on listening to the shows from the 70s and 80s when I finally laid my hands on them several years ago.
Sorry if this sounds like such a long convoluted story.
I grew up in Singapore and we've had AT40 on Rediffusion Singapore, which is best described as cable radio. I first heard the show back in 1974 when I was 9 years old and the first song I remembered hearing was "Rock The Boat" by the Hues Corporation. The song did hit #1 but it wasn't in that position when I first heard it. Problem was that I heard it at a friend's (also a neighbor) place, and couldn't listen to the rest of the show for one reason or another. It was difficult to listen to it at his place on a weekly basis because of various conflicting interests (my family, him, his family, etc) so at best I could only listen to parts of the show every now and then. I clamored my parents to get Rediffusion but they refused saying it wasn't worth subscribing it for just one program. Rediffusion was a stand-alone equipment so you couldn't connect it to say a tape player. You could tape it off the speakers but the sound would be very muffled, and that does not include all other sounds it would record around it. Besides, my friend wasn't that keen on listening to AT40 to begin with, and the couple of times he did tape for me, he would forget to flip the tape over, so parts of the show would be missing, especially the final hour. I finally gave up the experiment and any hope I would listen to AT40 in its entirety. Eventually in 1978, my friend moved to another area and we grew apart. Over the years, I would occasionally hear parts of AT40 at shopping malls, but that was it as far as listening to the show was concerned. While my interest in pop music never died, my interest in wanting to listen to AT40 eventually waned somewhat by then as other interests took up my time. Rediffusion was also losing subscribers over the years so it wasn't easy finding someone who also subscribed to Rediffusion, never mind the fact that they may not care for AT40 to begin with.
Eventually, one of the FM stations aired the show. In 1988. During that very first show heard on FM radio, Scott Evans was sitting in for Casey that week, and the #1 song I finally heard in its entirety was "Dirty Diana" by Michael Jackson. And get this. From the beginning of the show, I had to wait 3 days to listen to the #1 song being played. Let me explain. The station would put out each hour of the show from Monday through Thursday evening, and repeat the final hour on Sunday evening. But I figured that if I could wait 14 years to hear the #1 song on AT40, I could wait for another 3 days.
Ironically, I would only hear AT40 for another few weeks before I went overseas to pursue further education. You can imagine all the catching up I did on listening to the shows from the 70s and 80s when I finally laid my hands on them several years ago.
Sorry if this sounds like such a long convoluted story.