Radio and Record Stores

WHFS was an alternative rock station serving both Baltimore and Washington D.C. Founded on November 11, 1961, the station, from the start, was quite adventurous in its music programming, settling into a progressive rock format in the late '60s. In 1983, the station switched...

Turtles Records & Tapes was a chain of music stores based in Atlanta. Founded in 1977, it had over 125 stores throughout the South at its peak, mostly in Georgia and Florida. In the early '90s the chain was acquired by Blockbuster Music, which...

The most famous episode of WKRP in Cincinnati,??and one of the most acclaimed episodes of any sitcom, "Turkeys Away" follows the station's misguided attempt to give away turkeys. The whole promotion ends in disaster and hilarity, with the final line of the show emerging...

Ear X-tacy, a name inspired by British band XTC, opened in 1985 and quickly became Louisville's premiere alternative record store. Major recording artists often came and played in-store including Queens of the Stone Age, My Morning Jacket, Foo Fighters, The Black Keys, Tenacious D,...

Established in 1942 as W83C, this legendary Chicago radio station changed its call letters several times before becoming WLUP "The Loop 97.9" in 1977. For the next 41 years it was one of the most popular and influential radio station's in America. It is...

Penny for your thoughts! Buy 12 CDs or tapes (or LPs), for a penny and buy just four more at "regular club prices." Not many did that last bit.

Buzzard???s Nest Records was a Columbus-based record store chain that operated from 1972 to 1992. At its peak, it had a dozen locations in and around Columbus as well as three in Florida. There was talk of reviving the chain in 1995 but the...

WLRS took to the airwaves in 1964 under the auspices of the Louisville Radio School, thus the call letters. It was one of the few stand-alone FM stations in Kentucky, meaning it did not have an AM sibling station. By 1978, it had developed...

WFNX was one of the nation's first stations to adopt a modern rock format. Flipping from classic rock, and the call letters, WLYN, WFNX not only gained fans in Boston, but became one of the most revered and respected alternative radio stations in the...

Each week, starting in the late '60s and going through the '70s, listeners to Detroit's CKLW, many as far away as Cleveland, anxiously awaited to see where their favorite songs ranked on the station's Big 30 countdown.

The International Record Syndicate, or I.R.S. Records, was a label founded by Miles Copeland (brother of The Police's Stewart Copeland) and Jay Boberg. A division of A&M Records, its roster included some of the most important new wave acts of the '80s including R.E.M.,...

Musicland was founded in Minneapolis in 1955.?? In 1964, it merged with music distributor JL Marsh followed by merger in 1968 with record label and distributor Pickwick International. In 1977, American Can Company bought Pickwick and a year later, famed New York record store...

Harmony House was founded in 1947 in Hazel Park, a suburb of Detroit, by Carl Thom. At its peak, it had 38 stores in Metro Detroit. The bursting of the CD sales bubble of the late '90s and the rise of digital music spelled...

National Record Mart, or NRM for short, started in 1937 in downtown Pittsburgh as Jitterbug Records. In the 1940s, it changed its name and began to grow, eventually opening 130 stores in 30 states, including every mall and shopping center in Pittsburgh.

Originally WKSZ, this Philadelphia station flipped its format in 1993 from adult contemporary/oldies to a pop-friendly alternative format. Within two years it was full-on modern rock. In 2005, the station changed call letters, and format becoming WPHI, an urban contemporary station.

On May 12, 1992, WPHR, 107.9, flipped its format from CHR/top-40 to modern rock. It also changed call letters to WENZ, and branded itself "The End." The end of "The End" wasn't far off though, and within a few years new ownership changed the...

WOXY, 97X, was one of the most important alternative rock radio stations in America from 1985 until it went off the air in 2004. It stayed alive for a few more years as an Internet-only radio station. During its final year of existence, the...

In 1976, 95.5 FM WDHF became WMET but kept its top-40 format. Two years later it changed to an Album Oriented Rock (AOR) format and remained very popular. Today the station is WEBG and plays country music. READ MORE

Canada's Sam the Record Man, not to be confused with U.S.-bases Sam Goody, was founded in 1937 by Sam Sniderman. Originally it was the phonograph records department of his parents store on Yonge St. in Toronto. It grew to become the country's largest music...

You don't have to be from Cincinnati to love this classic sitcom. Based on Atlanta radio station WQXI, Cincinnati was chosen as the home of the fictitious station at random, as producers sought a more Midwestern location. "Cincinnati" also flowed well with the made-up...