97.7 FM WLUP “The Loop” Chicago, IL

Although Chicago’s 97.7 FM WLUP had taken to the radio airwaves the year prior, it carved out a name for itself at Comiskey Park on the city’s South Side with “Disco Demolition Night” in July of 1978 . Arranged to be held between a White Sox doubleheader (the second game would not end up being played), morning DJ for “The Loop,” Steve Dahl, called for attendees to bring disco records and paraphernalia to be blown up in the outfield as a collective display of detest for the dance music. The anti-disco antics devolved into an all-out riot as thousands of fans in and outside the ballpark ran wild amid the smoke from the bonfire of Bee Gees and Donna Summer records, and the hometown team was forced to forfeit the second game. What has been recorded as a mar on the White Sox and a dark day for baseball put the emerging rock radio station on the map. WLUP would maintain its position as the edgy voice of Chicago for another three decades until it faded from the airwaves, and in doing so, symbolize the last era of regionally-influential broadcast media.

American cities emptied out into the suburbs throughout the 1970s, feeding and producing different, and often opposing, cultures between the two settings. Chicago’s version of this is depicted in several movies of the following decade: The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, Uncle Buck, and Adventures in Babysitting each treat downtown Chicago as either a mystical place full of experiences the suburbs simply couldn’t supply, the hub of danger and decay, or both. Music is central to the storytelling of these movies (three of these examples were made by John Hughes, a Chicago suburbanite and known musicophile), but there is a clear distinction of what sounds represent the different areas in these 1980s films: blues and hip-hop emanating from the big city; hard rock and new wave for the suburbs. Disco and its companion nightclubs were predominately found in urban eras during its heyday of the mid 1970s. The mechanics of the DJ booth at discotheques laid the groundwork for record-scratching and sampling pioneers, and the bass-heavy beats coming from Disco records became the preferred backing for early rappers. Although rock music often also came from the big cities—either the bands working their way up through the club scene and/or recording at studios in town— it was by far the favored sound of the outlying areas of growing housing tracts and strip malls.

WLUP’s arrival and early years are symptomatic of the overall pattern of cities and their suburbs throughout the country in the era. The Loop, named after Chicago’s well know downtown business district, changed its office address several times but had its antennas atop one of the tallest buildings on the city’s skyline; actually emanating music and ideas from the urban to suburban settings. The FM station was by no means the first rock n roll radio provider to the city and its surrounding area, but it was the first to channel the hard rock attitude that had been percolating—particularly among young people—in the Midwestern city, its suburbs, and around the country.

The tumult of the late 1960s had spilled over into the next era, forcing two types of reactions in media creation and conveyance: reacting to the unrest and instability or avoiding it altogether. On TV, All in the Family took the issues of the day head on, while Happy Days hurdled viewers away from them by sending them back twenty years. The French Connection is a manifestation of 1970s grittiness, while Star Wars stays lightyears away from earthly topics. Apolitical, pro-fun Disco was a passive response to volatile politics, the Vietnam War, and demonstrations and riots on college campuses; hard rock music, with its heavy guitar and screeching vocals, channeled the anger and anxiety of the often dark days of the 70s. A radio station dedicated to capturing this part of the popular culture and broadcasting its reactions to the trends of the time period matches the overall feel of the 1970s, setting the stage for the “shock jock” era of the following two decades.