1979

Looks like most people here got into radio sometime during the 70's, while a few people even before the Beatles hit! Wow, interesting reading these responses.  

dr wu23 wrote: ^Yes..it was AM when my brother and I started listening...one or two of the Chicago stations had late night programs where they played 'underground' music from 10-4...etc......then in the early 70's FM became interesting .

I started actively listening to the radio around 1976, when FM radio was changing from it's alternative, "underground" music haven, to a kind of merging with the more mainstream pop diet existing on the AM Band. There was still underground music on FM radio, but it was just becoming harder to find, and rock radio was gravitating to a more mainstream approach. But even then, I feel that mainstream pop was of a better quality. I remember hearing Ambrosia's Holding On To Yesterday, Boston's More Than A Feeling, Alice Cooper's Only Women Bleed, and Dire Strait's Sultans Of Swing, and thinking they were pretty cool songs. But gone were the previous years where you might hear a side long prog epic or full album from a band like Yes or Triumvirat, and I got schooled in real progressive rock more from listening to friend's albums than on the so-called "alternative" FM radio. Still, radio had a role to play in the development of my music appreciation. 

When I was a kid the only radio I really heard was the AM pop stuff of the mid 70's ( think "Magic" by Pilot)

Edited by Argo2112 - October 23 2018 at 14:02

I began listening to radio in '66 back when AM top 40 was cool.  My very young elementary school head was full of a mix of Brit invasion, American Psych and Motown.  The Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Who, Simon & Garfunkel, Donovan, The Yardbirds, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Supremes, Mamas and the Papas, Dylan, Lovin Spoonful, The Hollies, Ray Charles, James Brown, The Animals, The Byrds, etc...whatever was playing, I soaked it up.  We also had a little record player and the newest Beatles and Stones albums were always playing. 

Those were actually great years for pop music despite disco.  Love the mid-late 70s and early 80s.