Song of the Week: CFNY

Yeah, so it’s not a song, but I feel that 102.1 in Toronto—CFNY—needs to be included. There were a ton of songs I never bought (I mean, even when I had a job, I had limited funds!) that I loved, and I loved them because they were on rotation on CFNY.

Songs like Martha and the Muffins “Echo Beach.”

By the summer between grades nine and ten, I was listening to CFNY exclusively. The only other radio station that came close, was CBC Radio Two, specifically its classical music programs. This wasn’t something I advertised widely at the time, but I have always been a fan of classical music as well as post-punk indy pop.

There are so many songs and so many artists that I knew from the CFNY rotation, and it’s fun now to go back to collect those songs.

Songs like Tones on Tail “Go!”

It’s obviously party nostalgia and partly ignorance of the current music scene, but I don’t wonder if there wasn’t something actually magical about the 1980s when it comes to music. There was so much that was so good and that was reaching a pretty wide audience.

Songs like China Crisis’ “Working With Fire And Steel.”

It’s really hard now when I realize that back then, I was closer to the release of the Beatles “She Loves You” than I am now to the release of David Bowie’s “Modern Love.”

Ouch.

Anyway, CFNY was my radio in the early 1980s and opened my eyes to all the excellent music out there.

Excellent music like Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark’s “Electricity.”