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There are bands that fit the 80s — and then there are bands that felt like they arrived to warn us.

That was Devo.

Yellow jumpsuits. Red “energy dome” hats. Deadpan faces. Movements like factory robots. And music that buzzed, twitched, and pulsed like electricity trying to escape.

On the surface, Devo looked like a joke.

Underneath, they were making one of the smartest statements in pop — the idea of “de-evolution”: maybe we weren’t progressing… maybe we were sliding backward.

And they wrapped all that social commentary in hooks you could shout along to.

Songs like “Whip It” and “Girl U Want” made MTV explode. “Freedom of Choice” felt like a prophecy. Even their covers — like “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” — turned familiar songs into something strange, sharp, and brand new.

Smart. Funny. A little unsettling.

And still way ahead of the curve.

Because yeah — the world did get stranger.

And somehow… Devo saw it coming.

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🎧 SONGS TO SPIN TONIGHT

Start here — and see where the rabbit hole leads:

• Whip It – the one everyone knows (and still impossible not to dance to)
• Girl U Want – pure nervous-system pop
• Freedom of Choice – catchy… and quietly philosophical
• Mongoloid – early Devo, raw and brilliant
• (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction – the reinvention nobody expected

Bonus listen if you want the deep cut: “Beautiful World.” Ironic. Dark. Perfect.

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💡 DID YOU KNOW? (DEVO TRIVIA)

• The “energy dome” hats weren’t just for fun — the band said they were designed to recycle human energy back into the brain.
• Devo started as an art-school project at Kent State University.
• Their early films and videos were so inventive that MTV played them constantly when the network launched.
• Mark Mothersbaugh (keyboards) went on to compose film and TV music — including Rugrats and The Royal Tenenbaums.
• Their band name? Short for “de-evolution.” The whole concept was the point.

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This is Rock of the 80’s signing off for tonight — not sad, exactly… just remembering.

And remembering sounds pretty damn good.

Some songs feel like they were designed to roll the clock backward.

The first guitar hits on “Your Love” and suddenly it’s late-night radio, the windows are cracked just enough for the warm air, and the world feels bigger than the little town you’re driving through. Bright, chiming guitars. Drums that never quite sit still. And Tony Lewis’s voice — high, urgent, and a little bit broken — pushing the whole thing forward.

It’s pure 80s magic:

big emotion, zero irony, and a chorus you can’t help but sing like your heart’s on the line.

And yeah… “Josie’s on a vacation far away,” but the real hook is that feeling the 80s captured so well — wanting something, knowing better, and turning it up anyway.

🎤 80s Trivia:

“Your Love” was recorded in just a few takes — and The Outfield weren’t actually from the U.S. at all. They were a British band from London who somehow nailed that American radio sound so perfectly that most people assumed they were from the States.

Some songs fade.

This one just keeps looping — from car stereos to playlists to that part of your brain labeled “don’t skip this.”

This is Rock of the 80’s signing off for tonight — not sad, exactly… just remembering.

And remembering sounds pretty damn good.

There was a time — and I swear I’m not making this up — when the weirdest, most wonderful thing on your radio came out of… Pasadena.

KROQ-FM.

It wasn’t polished.

It wasn’t safe.

Half the time it sounded like they’d duct-taped the transmitter to a palm tree and said, “Eh, we’ll see what happens.”

And then—bang—out came Depeche Mode, The Cure, Oingo Boingo, Missing Persons, The Smiths, INXS… all the misfits, all the outsiders, all the bands your parents thought were going to corrupt the dog.

A huge part of that madness?

Rick Carroll.

Rick didn’t program radio like a consultant.

He programmed it like a kid who’d just discovered a secret candy store and refused to tell the grown-ups.

He helped build that “Roq of the 80’s” sound — sharp, rebellious, neon-lit — and suddenly the rest of the country is calling L.A. asking:

“…what the hell are you people doing out there?”

And right in the middle of it all?

Richard Blade.

That voice. That accent.

Like your cool British cousin who shows up at Thanksgiving, steals the stereo, and somehow makes everyone okay with it.

Richard wasn’t just playing records — he was introducing characters. He made the scene feel like a place. A world. A late-night club at the edge of town where everybody wore black and nobody judged you for dancing badly.

And woven through all of that — like a secret back door into the scene — was Rodney Bingenheimer.

Rodney championed bands before anyone else would, slipped them onto the air, and somehow made the weird kids feel seen. If Carroll rewired the system and Blade brought the party, Rodney was the connector — the guy who whispered, “Hey… listen to this.”

And then — because this was KROQ — they had to push it further.

Every April 1st, they’d mess with you.

Fake announcements. Fake format flips. Wild stories.

For a few hours you’d swear the station had been sold, moved, shut down, or turned into polka.

One year, they even leaned into the joke and did a whole “Pirate Radio” day — like they’d been taken over by hijackers with questionable ethics and great hair.

Listeners freaked out. DJs cackled. And somewhere, management probably needed Tums.

It was chaotic. It was juvenile. It was completely unnecessary.

And it was perfect.

Because KROQ wasn’t about being respectable.

It was about reminding you that music was supposed to feel alive — unpredictable — like the night might go anywhere if you just kept the dial right where it was.

So here’s to the Roq.

To Carroll changing the rules.

To Blade making the whole thing feel like home.

To Rodney quietly opening the door for the next wave before anyone realized what was happening.

To every April Fools’ prank that made us yell at the radio and then laugh at ourselves.

And to that glorious stretch of time when a station in Pasadena helped rewired the whole damn decade.

This is Rock of the 80’s signing off for tonight — not sad, exactly… just remembering. And remembering sounds pretty damn good.

When MTV lit up the screen in 1981 and opened with “Video Killed the Radio Star,” the world tilted just a bit on its axis. Suddenly music wasn’t just something you listened to — it was something you watched, lived, breathed.

And then came the artist who didn’t just step into that new world — she owned it.

Pat Benatar.

Power chords. Leather jackets. Those laser-sharp eyes. And a voice that could float, burn, and absolutely destroy when it needed to.

Pat wasn’t following trends — she was the trend.

A classically trained singer who ditched the expected path for the raw electricity of rock clubs, she blasted out of the late ’70s and took command of FM radio, MTV, and pretty much every teenager’s bedroom stereo.

“Heartbreaker.”

“Hit Me With Your Best Shot.”

Songs that didn’t just play — they dared you to feel tougher, louder, braver.

And when “You Better Run” rolled in as the second video ever aired on MTV, it wasn’t just a milestone.

It was a message:

Rock wasn’t going anywhere — it was just getting sharper, louder, and gloriously visual.

Pat Benatar didn’t just sing the soundtrack of the 80s.

She taught the decade how to stand its ground.

This is Rock of the 80’s signing off for tonight — not sad, exactly… just remembering. And remembering sounds pretty damn good.

Every once in a while, a song shows up early — like the kid who gets to the party before everyone else and somehow still makes it cool.

That was “Driver’s Seat” by Sniff ’n’ the Tears.

Yeah, I know — 1978. Technically still the ’70s.

But close your eyes, hit play, and tell me that track doesn’t already have one foot in the ’80s.

The groove is tight.

The synths creep in like shadows.

The vocal sits back — detached, weary, just a little mysterious.

It doesn’t swagger.

It glides.

“Driver’s Seat” doesn’t feel like discos and bell-bottoms.

It feels like night driving on an empty highway, lights flashing past, something unresolved hanging in the air.

That steady pulse?

That mix of melancholy and motion?

That is pure, distilled, pre-80s DNA.

Sniff ’n’ the Tears never really became a household name, which kind of adds to the charm. The band shows up, drops this sleek, perfectly tuned track into the world, then slips back into the shadows while the rest of us keep rewinding the tape.

And the crazy part?

The song kept resurfacing — film soundtracks, commercials, playlists — every time reminding us:

“Oh yeah… this thing still hits.”

“Driver’s Seat” feels like the moment rock stopped looking backward and quietly started glancing into the rear-view mirror… not at the past, but at the future catching up.

Late 70s on the calendar.

But in the heart?

Already cruising into the next decade.

This is Rock of the 80’s signing off for tonight — not sad, exactly… just remembering. And remembering sounds pretty damn good.

You wanted to know what modern sounded like at the dawn of the ’80s?

It wasn’t loud.

It wasn’t messy.

It slid into the room like it owned the place.

It was sleek.

It was smart.

It was The Cars.

They rolled out of Boston in the late ’70s like they already knew where the decade was going. That first record — The Cars (1978) — didn’t just hit radio… it set up camp there.

“Just What I Needed.”

“My Best Friend’s Girl.”

“Good Times Roll.”

Every track sounded like someone had taken rock and roll, wiped the fingerprints off, and wired it into the future.

And then — the ’80s show up.

Suddenly Ric Ocasek’s cool alien-poet vibe, Benjamin Orr’s velvet voice, those synths sliding under razor-sharp guitars — it all clicks. This wasn’t punk. This wasn’t pop. This was something new, humming quietly, like neon at midnight.

And if you REALLY want to understand the mood?

Put on “Moving in Stereo.”

That track isn’t trying to impress you. It stalks. It floats. It feels like headlights drifting past your window at 1 a.m., like something slightly dangerous but impossible to look away from. That’s the sound of technology learning how to blush.

Then comes Candy-O.

Then Panorama.

Then Shake It Up.

Each one a little colder, a little sharper, a little more like the world we were heading into.

And then — Heartbeat City (1984).

Boom.

“Drive.”

“Magic.”

“You Might Think.”

Suddenly The Cars are everywhere: FM radio, MTV, car stereos, bedrooms, roller rinks — all humming along like they’ve always lived in your head. “You Might Think” becomes MTV’s very first Video of the Year – They Beat MJ to do it, and the band proves something huge:

Videos didn’t have to just show the song.

They could build a whole universe around it.

The Cars never begged for attention. No capes. No pyrotechnics. No “look at me” speeches.

Skinny ties.

Deadpan smiles.

Songs that sounded like tomorrow.

Decades later, they still feel clean. Icy. Perfectly tuned. Like someone bottled the 80s before it had a chance to spill everywhere.

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame finally caught on in 2018.

But fans always knew:

The Cars weren’t ahead of their time.

They were the time.

This is Rock of the 80’s signing off for tonight — not sad, exactly… just remembering. And remembering sounds pretty damn good.

There’s a moment — right before the music starts — where the room feels quiet, the lights are low, and the whole world is leaning in.

Yeah. That’s where we are right now.

Welcome to Rock of the 80’s.

Pull up a chair, grab your headphones, and let’s take a little trip back to when radio still felt like magic and the television wasn’t trying to sell us twelve reality shows and a toaster at the same time.

This is where guitars still have attitude.

Where drum machines learned how to have feelings.

Where eyeliner, leather jackets, neon triangles, and heartbreak all somehow lived in the same three-minute song.

We’re talking the stuff you grew up with, fell in love to, broke up to, drove too fast listening to — and never quite shook loose.

We’re not here to preserve history in a glass case.

We’re here to plug it back in and turn it up like it’s brand new again.

So take a breath.

Loosen the tie.

Kick off the shoes.

Class is in session — and the subject is nostalgia with a heavy backbeat.

Let’s make some noise.

You ever have one of those moments where you realize the party didn’t just end — they tore the building down, paved the lot, and put up a juice bar?

Yeah. That’s kinda how this feels.

On December 31, 2025, the last of the MTV music channels fade to black. No more scrolling playlists, no more 2 a.m. deep cuts, no more “hey, I haven’t heard THIS since Reagan was still trying to work a VCR.”

Back in the day — and I mean back — MTV didn’t just play music. It was music. It was neon, hairspray, eyeliner, and guitar solos that lasted longer than most relationships. It was that weird magic moment when radio got pictures… and suddenly the pictures mattered as much as the songs.

And yeah — it changed. Reality shows, dating shows, shows about people arguing in kitchens. The music got pushed to the basement like an embarrassing uncle at Thanksgiving. But those music channels — they were like the last little pirate radio station broadcasting from the attic.

And now… click. Gone.

So pour one out for the glory days: for Duran Duran on boats they clearly didn’t own, for the Talking Heads being delightfully strange, for Prince making us all blush, and for the hundreds of one-hit wonders who at least got fifteen minutes of being larger than life.

MTV may not have invented the 80s — but man, it sure helped turn the volume up.

This is Rock of the 80’s signing off for tonight — not sad, exactly… just remembering. And remembering sounds pretty damn good.