Hacker Cinema
New Wave: Dare to be Different
2017 · Film · documentary · 95 min
Directed by Ellen Goldfarb
U2, Talking Heads, Depeche Mode, Blondie, Duran Duran, Tears for Fears, The Clash, The Cure: Over half a billion records sold but you may never have heard of them if not for a small suburban radio station on Long Island, NY: WLIR. In August, 1982, a small group of radio visionaries knew they couldn't compete with the mega-stations in New York City. With one brave decision, they changed the sound of radio forever. Program Director Denis McNamara, the 'LIR crew and the biggest artists of the era tell the story of how they battled the FCC, the record labels, mega-radio and all the conventional rules to create a musical movement that brought the New Wave to America.
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It was different as we might listen together to the same station across town. There were TV shows too. Many stations had sort of countdowns of the week's top songs. It was just a different vibe.
The Ed Sullivan Show American Bandstand Soul Train
Top of the Pops BBC
One of the guys from Nirvana wrote a good essay on how Billboard destroyed music in the 1980s by consolidating the number of radio markets feeding the chart and allowing ways to trick the top seller lists. Before the MTV modern billboard era there used to be local artists on local radio and eventually one might break out onto other markets and eventually break nationally. Then artists became famous simply due to being good looking, having a catchy producer driven sound and a corporate machine getting them into everyone's ears. Things were a little different from the late 60s to the early 90 and some artists broke out organically.
Here is an example of a station that was independent an influenced early MTV programming during their first couple of years. WLIR documentary, 'New Wave: Dare to Be Different,' chronicles the rise and fall of one of the coolest '80s radio stations.
A funny example of a non-corporate act was the group KLF who hacked the Top of The Pops formula and got onto TV with absurdity. A documentary about them is called "Who Killed the KLF".