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.
Tuesday, July 9, 2019
Mariah Carey "I'll Be There"
My Grandfather had an unusual reaction upon seeing Mariah Carey's music video to "I'll Be There" on VH-1. Since my parents didn't have cable, I caught up on MTV and VH-1 while visiting Grandma and Grandpa. The music video for "I'll Be There" was quite vanilla -- it merely contained footage from Mariah's MTV Unplugged special. Since I was a teenager at the time, all my Grandpa's questions about teenagers went directly to me as I apparently was some sort of unofficial spokesperson. About halfway through the video, Grandpa questioned why the folks in the audience of Mariah's video waved their arms side-to-side in the air during the chorus. I explained to him the crowd was just dancing along to the song. Somehow this was Grandpa's tipping point. He turned his swivel chair toward me and exclaimed, "Your generation is fucked." My Dad, who was also in the room at the time, looked to me and said, "Don't worry -- he said the same thing about my generation."