Jan. 22, 2026

Before the Algorithm: How We Actually Connected

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Show Notes
Transcript

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Thank you for sharing the show.
And thank you for being part of the Back to the 80s Radio community.

Back to the 80s Radio isn’t just about the music — it’s about the moments, the memories, and the human connection that defined a decade. In this episode, Before the Algorithm: How We Actually Connected, we take a thoughtful look at how life felt before playlists, feeds, and personalization took over.

Back when music was discovered by waiting, radio voices felt like company, and culture was something we experienced together in real time. Through iconic ’80s songs, shared memories, and reflective storytelling, this episode explores what we gained, what quietly slipped away, and why the values of connection, attention, and presence still matter today — no matter when you grew up.

Whether you lived through the ’80s or are discovering its spirit for the first time, this is an invitation to slow down, listen deeply, and remember what it feels like when music — and radio — are human again.

WEBVTT

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I'm so scared. I wish I had a ham sandwich

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to call my nerves. We got to find a place

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to hide.

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Where are you going, fuzzy face, That's what I was

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afraid of?

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Wait for me.

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Welcome back to Back to the Eighties Radio. I am

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Tscano from the dynamic duel of radio Takanaway, Chang and

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wherever you're listening to us from right now, on the app,

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on the website, in the car with a pair of

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headphones on late at night, at the gym, on the couch, wherever.

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Thank you for being here. If this is your first

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time listening, welcome as well. And if you've been with

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us for a while now, well thanks for coming back.

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You can listen to us anytime at fmads dot com,

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and you can follow the show wherever you get your podcasts.

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And if you know someone who loves and absolutely adores

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the eighties or just misses when radio felt real, share

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the show with him. That's how this community keeps growing. Now,

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for today's show, it's about the way connection used to feel,

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way before playlists, before everything was instant and disposable. You've

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joined us here before the algorithm. Once again, Thanks again

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for spending part of your day or night with us.

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I don't take that lightly. Before we jump into quick

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heads up later in the show, I'm gonna tease something

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special from a friend of the program, Eric Shores, the

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author who just released a new book called Life Goes

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on the Lessons we learned from eighties music. If the

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music of this decade shaped you in any way, well

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you're going to want to hear about that. You know,

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when people talk about the nineteen eighties, there's a weird

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idea going on that we're saying life was just easier

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back then. Well that's just not all true. If you

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were a kid, it was great. If you were an adult,

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and depending on your lifestyle or your opportunity that life

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granted you, you know, it might have been different. There

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were a lot of families back then that were just

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getting by and some of you, I know, grew up

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in towns where there was just one factory or one

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plant that kept everything alive. And when rumors of layoffs

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started circulating in the early eighties, well you felt it

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at home long before anyone could explain it to you.

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You'll remember Dad's coming home from the second shift quieter

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than you. Dual moms at the kitchen table with bills

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spread out on the table, doing the math again and again,

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and nobody said the words out loud, but you knew

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something was going on. I lived in southern California, and

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I had the slightest idea what my parents were going through,

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whether they were doing good or bad. I knew my

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dad worked at Toyota Manufacturing, he worked for the union,

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and my mother was a nurse's assistant. And I'm an

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only child, so it really wasn't too bad for myself.

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I actually had a great time during the early eighties

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as a very very young kid for a lot of people.

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Though the world felt heavy on TV, Ronald Reagan was

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on the news constantly.

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Mister Gerbatchow teared down this wall.

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You heard words like Reaganomics, you heard words like the

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Cold War, and even if you didn't really understand them yet,

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there was always this background tension about missiles and the Soviets,

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that things were bigger than us, especially if you've seen

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movies back then like The Day After or Red Dawn.

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Who stuff really scared the you know what out of you.

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And then there were moments that stopped everything, like January

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twenty eighth, nineteen eighty six. You should recall the Challenger

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TVs rolled into classrooms. I remember I was in the

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sixth grade. Rooms went quiet until that fateful moment.

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The head of the Space Shuttle program had no explanations,

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just sorrow at the tragedy.

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At eleven forty am, this morning Space Program Experience on

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National tragedy with the explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger,

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approximately a minute and a half half the launch from

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here at the Kennedy Space Center.

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When the Challenger exploded and we all grew quiet, we

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were in disbelief. Or how about December eighth, nineteen eighty

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you would hear on the radio, watched on television that

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John Lennon had been killed.

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John Smith is on the line.

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I don't care what's on the line, Howard.

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You have got to.

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Say what we going to do? Yes, we have to

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say it. Remember, this is just a football game. No

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matter who wins, all thoses. An unspeakable tragedy confirmed to

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us by ABC News in New York City. John Lennon

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outside of his apartment building on the West side of

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New York City, the most famous, perhaps of all of

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the Beatles, shot twice in the back, rushed the Rosevelt

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Hospital dead on arrival. I ought to go back to

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the game after that news flash, which in duty we had.

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To say he was gone, and a lot of people

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felt like something gentle had been taken out of this world.

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So for a lot of people that time was feeling heavy,

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but they still kept on moving.

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All right.

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Coming up in just a moment, we're going to be

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talking about how people actually processed all of that and

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why radio mattered more than we realized at the time.

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So stay with us. This is the one and only

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back to the eighties radio and here's men at work

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with Overkill.

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I can get juice sleep.

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I think about the implications, diving into possibly the complications,

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especially at night, worry over situations.

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I know where we are right.

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Perhaps it's just an imagination that after day and read.

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Not after night my heart beat show Stu fee.

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Goos to be and face between the sheets only brings exasperation.

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It's not to walk the streets.

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Smell the desperation, but at least it has pretty lines,

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les variation and the fires the line.

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From overkills.

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Not after day real, not after night my hundred shows stuffee.

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Goos to be and.

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Good by. I got to this last.

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About the shots as contacts.

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Listen, miss.

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I want to ast you mentions that I mean, it's just.

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On the jail, day after day, good night after night show.

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To be.

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To be.

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All right, welcome back back to the eighties radio. Thanks

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for staying with us. We're talking about how we actually

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connected back in the nineteen eighties before the algorithm. In

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the eighties, when life got really tough, we couldn't disappear

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into screens. I mean, I guess you could into television

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screens or maybe the arcade screens. Sure, but we didn't scroll,

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we didn't optimize our emotions, and a lot of us

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just turned on the radio. That was our escape. And

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for some of you, maybe it was a clock radio

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on your nightstand. Maybe it was a boombox for somebody else.

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Maybe for somebody else that was a Walkman with a

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cassette that you'd played one hundred times. Maybe for some

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of you, you remember lying on your bed, staring at

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the ceiling or at the wall filled with posters, and

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while those songs that you wanted to hear came out.

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You remember those late night drives, stopping at seven to

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eleven or Circle K for some soda or coffee and

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the radio was still on, because well, if you turned

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it off, silent felt even worse. And those voices coming

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across the radio really mattered to us. You didn't know

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what the DJ looked like. You didn't know their all

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it takes or their personal life. We couldn't care less,

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but we trusted them.

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Oh, No.

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Hot ninety seven hotter than a flaming ember. Come Sunday,

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eighteenth of December. We want to dismember all your inhibitions.

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Send you to see l be sure. Bobby Brown in

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new edition at Medicine Square Garden watched a try a

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Real Heart and Beat Color ninety seven, Toll Free True

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to Me one eight hundred two two three ninety seven

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ninety seven You gonna be in concert Heaven. Here's no

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El one his latest tale to tell.

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On the Hot One, they talked between songs. They told stories. Yeah,

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sometimes they even rambled. But that's exactly why it worked.

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And if you wanted to hear music, you just waited.

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You discovered artists by accident. You sat by a cassette

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deck with your finger hovering over the record button, hoping

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that DJ wouldn't talk too much over the intro. And

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those mixtapes weren't playlists exactly, They were messages and they

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each meant something different to us because they took hard

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work on our part, they took efforts, they meant something.

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So behind every mixtape there was real meaning. And one

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of the reasons the eighties still lives so vividly in

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our memory is because culture was shared. We heard the

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same songs, we watched the same TV shows, and if

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you missed it, by any chance, you really missed it,

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it was gone. You'll remember those days that you waited.

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You knew something was going to be on TV, and

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you probably expected to be there and watch it, and

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for some odd reason, maybe you didn't arrive home on time,

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or you got the days mixed up and you missed

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the program and it wouldn't show again until who knows when.

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What a bummer. You'll remember that that was just crushing

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to our souls. But it wasn't just the music or

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the malls, or the TV series or the movies. It

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was the places where we stopped right after school or

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late night, those food spots, you know, those restaurants that

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were part of our growing up. Well, sometimes places that

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don't even exist anymore. In some parts Okay. Now, if

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you're already smiling right now because you're going back in

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your mind, you know exactly what I'm talking about. So

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hold that thought. We're going to come right back to it.

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And speaking of memory and meaning, I want to quickly

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mention our friend Eric Shores, the author who just released

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a book called Life Goes On the Lessons We Learned

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from Eighties Music. It's an incredible, thoughtful, heartfelt look at

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how the songs of the decade of the eighties didn't

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just entertain us, they shaped us. And I'm going to

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be sharing more about how you can get your hands

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on a copy of Eric Shore's book. So stick to

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the end.

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All right.

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Coming up next, we're going to be bringing this conversation

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to today and why it matters now more than ever.

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Stay right here, I'm back to the eighties radio. Here's madness,

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our house.

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The West. It's Sunday.

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Bas mother said she needs a rest, the kids something,

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sisters saying, Insley, brother's.

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Got to day two BC House streets house and my

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house has a crown. There's only something.

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Happened in minute years at any quiet now, my mom,

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she's the house crown.

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Nothing has dad down house house in the middle of streets,

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the house in the middle house streets.

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So go to the.

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Mother gets up like Bob. Mother has to sha.

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Benchess the kids to school to see them up where the.

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Smoke kids who sees the one play guys, they seem

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out of white house in the middle love out streets

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house and I remember where the game and everything is.

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No, we would have such a very good time to

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find time such a hard time and then don't remember

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how like.

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Some he wants to pay away. Then we'd say nothing

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would come between us. Two turns. Father less to your

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best mother's times. You need to rest.

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The kids are playing up downstairs, and sisters saying.

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In that SI.

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Brothers got today to keep it out.

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Hang over.

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House in the streets, House in love ustreet, House in

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the middle streets. House in house was our castle and

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our game house in the middle of house.

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House.

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All right, he's just heard madness in our house. On

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Back to the Eighties radio, we are talking about the

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way we connected back in the nineteen eighties, way before

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the algorithms and the optimization, way before the scrolling and

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the addiction to the screens. Now, if you'll allow me

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a little moment to talk about why the eighties still

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matter today. It's not necessarily because we want to go backwards.

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Well maybe some of us do, well, at least we

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wish we could. But it's because attention today is constantly

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being taken from us. Our attention, our experience, and for

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some it feels like our freedom. You know, what's interesting

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is that when we were living through the nineteen eighties,

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none of us were sitting around thinking one day this

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will all be gone. We weren't trying to preserve it.

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I mean, some of us couldn't wait till the newer generations.

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You know, we couldn't wait for the year two thousand. Boy,

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we were just so wrong.

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You know.

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We weren't there documenting that. We we were just living

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through it. And you see, that's actually how it works.

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You don't realize something is special while it's happening, not

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fully back then. Connection, it wasn't something you scheduled or

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looked for online. You couldn't you remember talking to friends.

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It was either in person or on the phone, or

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by letter. Some of you may be wondering what the

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heck is a letter? Yeah, something that you wrote by

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hand to a friend or an acquaintance or somebody, and

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you folded it up, put it in an envelope, bought

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a stamp, stuck the stamp to the envelope, filled out

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the envelope to who and from, and you sent it

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out via postal service. We used to talk to people

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with our mouth, yeah, and some of us used to

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spend time, i mean, next to the phone waiting to

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see that surprise phone call from who knows who. It

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was exciting, and some of us didn't want to hear

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anybody anymore throughout the day because you either were just tired,

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and so when the phone rang, you didn't want to

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hear about you know, people's problems or who was on

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the other line, and so you didn't answer, and eventually

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the phone would stop on me. And the excitement of

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not knowing who it was was pretty cool. And those

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connections that we had back then happened because we were

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in the same places at the same time, you know,

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the schools, the restaurants, the fast food joints, the malls,

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the arcades, the pizza places, and we shared the same

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moments with everybody else. We didn't need an app to

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tell us what mattered. We just found out by being

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in the moment. Present. We were hearing songs that everybody

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else heard, watching the same TV shows, and we talked

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about them the next day because there was no other

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option and we had only about a handful of different

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things that we can watch, unlike today that you have

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half a billion things that you can watch and nobody

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00:20:10.519 --> 00:20:14.559
agrees on anything anymore. And that created something that we

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00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:19.039
don't talk about enough anymore, shared memories. Today everything is

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just personalized. It's all about you, it's all about me,

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and nobody else matters. Two people can live in the

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same house today and experience completely different worlds, different feeds,

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different news, different music, different realities, and that just didn't

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exist back then, and it was cool.

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Now.

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I'm not just saying one is good and the other's bad.

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I'm just saying they were different. But what we had

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in the nineteen eighties, that difference feels like loss. And

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it wasn't because our past was perfect, but because something

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that was natural, freeing, human slipped quietly out of the

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room when no one was looking, and that has come

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to hurt our soul. And you know, there are songs

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that entertain you, there are songs that stay with you,

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songs that sound like someone is sitting next to you

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and saying you don't have to explain anything right now.

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This is r e M back to the eighties radio.

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The one goes out to the one. The swan goes

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out to the one I left behind.

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A simple crop. It's lucky time, my time.

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The swe goes out to the one.

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Fire fire.

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This swe goes out to.

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The one eye the.

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The swe goes out to the one I letting high.

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Simple Bob, It's lucky high.

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My tigue.

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The swim goes out to the one eye the.

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Fire fire.

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This one goes out to the one eyed.

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This one goes out.

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To the one I beleved behind. Another one st back time.

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This one goes out.

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To the one.

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No matter how many good movies you see this summer,

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you must see an officer and a gentleman. He'll lift

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00:24:32.640 --> 00:24:40.240
you up where you below Richard gear deb Winger, an

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00:24:40.279 --> 00:24:44.160
officer and a gentleman. Rated are hunder seventeen not admitted

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without there.

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It starts on Wednesday at Man Reaching Westwood, Man Chinese Hollywood,

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in a theater or driving near you or someone who

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lives right next star to you.

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Ladies and gentlemen on Shadow Stevens and you must listen

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to Back to the Eighties radio.

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It's the got to.

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The eighties radio. And if you listen to that song

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00:25:03.599 --> 00:25:05.960
for the very first time when it came out on

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the radio, you probably remember exactly where you were, and

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00:25:09.240 --> 00:25:11.359
if you're hearing it now for the first time, you

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00:25:11.440 --> 00:25:13.960
don't need a memory to feel what it's saying. That's

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the kind of song radio used to be built around.

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No distractions, noise, but companionship. As we come to the

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00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:26.200
last stretch of the program today, I just want to

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00:25:26.279 --> 00:25:28.279
let you know the part that matters most to me.

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This conversation right here, the one you and I are having.

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This is what matters to me because it's it's not

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just for the people who grew up in the nineteen eighties.

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It's for anyone who's tired, exhausted, tired of being pulled

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00:25:43.319 --> 00:25:47.599
in one hundred or thousand different directions, Tired of feeling

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00:25:47.720 --> 00:25:50.839
connected all the time to everything and close to nothing,

341
00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:56.440
Tired of clicking likes and subscribes and getting the heat

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00:25:56.559 --> 00:26:00.640
when you didn't like somebody else's picture or post or

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00:26:01.319 --> 00:26:04.559
let them know where you were going. Tired of the

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00:26:04.759 --> 00:26:08.880
noise that never really says anything. What people are responding

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to when they hear stories from this time. From the eighties.

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Isn't the fashion or the gadgets. Those were cool, cheesy sometimes,

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but it's the idea that life moved at a different pace,

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00:26:22.240 --> 00:26:24.400
and that you were allowed to sit with a song,

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to listen to whole albums, to watch programs with their commercials,

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00:26:30.880 --> 00:26:33.960
and no matter how annoying those were, we had an

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00:26:34.039 --> 00:26:38.119
experience that we had no idea we were losing. For

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00:26:38.240 --> 00:26:40.839
people who didn't grow up back then, this isn't about

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00:26:40.960 --> 00:26:44.519
missing out. It's about discovering that another way of being

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00:26:44.680 --> 00:26:49.759
still exists, because you can still choose to listen without multitasking,

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00:26:50.599 --> 00:26:53.079
you can still let a voice keep you company without

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00:26:53.119 --> 00:26:56.759
asking anything from you, and you can still share moments

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instead of consuming them alone. And that's what we're offering you,

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00:27:01.599 --> 00:27:04.799
not just a decade or nostalgia, but a reminder that

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00:27:04.920 --> 00:27:09.400
connection doesn't need permission for technology. It just needs attention,

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and that choice is yours right now. You know, one

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of the things I'm most grateful for is that you

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00:27:16.920 --> 00:27:20.279
can choose to spend the time here with us in

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00:27:20.359 --> 00:27:24.079
a world that's constantly pulling your attention, asking you to

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00:27:24.279 --> 00:27:27.720
click here and scroll and react and move on. You

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00:27:27.880 --> 00:27:31.200
state you listened, and well that matters more than you think,

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00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:35.599
because this show exists for one simple reason, and that's

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00:27:35.680 --> 00:27:38.519
to create a place where that connection that we used

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00:27:38.559 --> 00:27:39.960
to have can still.

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Be pat.

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If back to the eighties Radio reminds you of something

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00:27:53.079 --> 00:27:55.799
that you don't want to lose. If it slows you down,

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00:27:55.960 --> 00:27:59.079
even just a little, if it feels like a voice

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00:27:59.119 --> 00:28:01.960
in the room when you one, then you're already part

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00:28:02.000 --> 00:28:04.640
of what the show is about. But if you'd like

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00:28:04.720 --> 00:28:07.960
to help keep it going by supporting the show, share

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00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:11.759
it with someone who needs it, or simply coming back again,

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00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:14.839
and you'll find all the ways to do that. How

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00:28:14.920 --> 00:28:18.039
to support the show in the show notes, No pressure,

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00:28:19.000 --> 00:28:22.720
just thanks, because this is about presence and community and

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00:28:22.880 --> 00:28:27.519
remembering that connection still matters. So thanks for being here today.

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I'm back to the eighties radio. I've been your host,

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00:28:29.880 --> 00:28:33.319
Mario Uscono. Thanks for listening, and thank you for choosing

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something slower in a very fast world. So as I

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let you go, I want to leave you with a

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00:28:39.160 --> 00:28:42.759
song that reminds us of something very important. After all

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the searching and waiting and the noise quiets down, sometimes

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what we need most is a little joy, a little sincerity,

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and a reminder that showing up still matters. Here's never

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going to give you up. From Rick Astley, from me

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to you and back to the age He's radio.

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You're no strangers, too bad. You know the rules and

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so you are. I'm go commitment smaller gap.

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You know.

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You wouldn't let this stop any other God, I just

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want to tell you, Buffy La, godn't make you understand

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00:29:37.400 --> 00:29:41.240

Before the Algorithm: How We Actually Connected

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