BACK TO THE FUTURE: Our recent story...

BACK TO THE FUTURE: Our recent story about the impending demise of rock prompted a flurry of calls and letters, the most intriguing coming from Top 40 rock radio vet Guy Zapoleon. The national program director for Houston’s KHMX-FM, Zapoleon recently circulated a memo to his radio colleagues proposing his theory accounting for a rock “Birth & Death” cycle. It divides the history of rock into three-part cycles: Birth/Rebirth (when music is fresh and part of a new pop trend); Extremes (when the active core audience tires of the trend and embraces more extreme music, alienating casual listeners) and Doldrums (when radio rejects new music trends and retreats to timid, traditional, oldies-dominated songs).

According to Zapoleon, the cycle has repeated four times: 1956-1962 (from Elvis to the Twist to Teen Idols); 1964-1971 (The Beatles to Acid Rock to Singer-Songwriters); 1975-1980 (Fleetwood Mac to Disco to Urban Cowboy) and 1982-Today (Phil Collins to Guns N’ Roses to Vanilla Ice). As Zapoleon puts it: “Top 40 is in a crisis period again. Songs are like batteries. Once they are used up, they can only be recharged for so many plays.” And what about the future? “People listen to us for two major reasons: to hear the best mix of the latest musical trends and to energize them and pick up their spirits. Top 40 is a pick-me-up format. It must remain fun and can’t afford to lose its tempo. When we become too wimpy we stop delivering to our listeners’ expectations.”