Phil Collins, Elton John, and Gloria Estefan dominated Adult Contemporary radio back in the 1980s and '90s, yet have disappeared from modern radio. Seemingly, the only time you ever hear them is at the grocery store or your local CVS. This blog remembers the music, the stories and the quirky characters from my days working in Adult Contemporary radio.
During Spring Break 1999, I came across a song on the radio while vacationing in Florida. It sounded like a bad PSA about skin cancer, but was actually a bona fide song from Baz Luhrmann called "Everyone's Free (to Wear Sunscreen)." The spoken word song sampled "Everybody's Free (to Feel Good)" and featured timeless advice from Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich that read like a commencement speech by Australian voiceover artist Lee Perry. Between 1997 and 1999, your parents probably once forwarded you a commencement speech supposedly from Kurt Vonnegut, but it was actually penned by Schmich The article originally appeared in 1997, but was updated to reflect the present time (1999). It perfectly summed up a decade of music that, no matter how mainstream or bizarre, found its way onto the radio.