A (Mostly) 80s Music Podcast: What Difference Does It Make?

You might know Mike Marrone as the guy that created and hosted The Loft for SiriusXM for 17 years. He first established a name for himself in 1984 at Your Rock Alternative FM 106.3 WHTG, a free form rock station in New Jersey. And so, Mike is the perfect guest as we analyze the top 106.7 songs played on KROQ in Los Angeles back in 1984. This week we take apart songs 100 to 91. Mike says there are two types of songs, "Stuff you like and stuff you don't". As you would expect, he holds nothing back. We have a great time talking about Mike's early days and now you can listen to him on his internet radio show, FROM THE BASEMENT at mikemarrone.com

You can hear the songs as they are slowly revealed on our Spotify playlist.

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Our cover photo boy this week is Swedish Egil The jock from KROQ in Los Angeles kicks off our countdown with a song that time has forgotten, 'Erotic Egil'. Time has forgotten it because it is nowhere to be found. Fortunately, most of the songs played back then are still around and ready to be dissected. We jump right in to the year that was 1984 and discover many lost classics. We strive/strove/are striven (Holly and Dave and decide which is the proper word) to create a great show so welcome to 1984 as we countdown the top 106.7 songs.

Follow along as we slowly reveal the songs on our Spotify playlist.

This will also be posted on our website WDDIMPodcast.com/music-playlists.

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Season Premiere! In anticipation of our upcoming dissection of the songs played on KROQ in 1984, we wanted to set the table so to speak, and take you back to what we might have been doing back in the day. Dave was probably driving his Dodge Turbo Colt and wearing his sunglasses at night on his way to see Beverly Hills Cop....again. When not working at Camp Beverly Hills, Holly was sitting at home with her newly purchased answering machine, watching night time dramas and waiting for her yellow Corvette driving, mustachioed lothario to call. All this and more on our 1984 Pop Culture episode.

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If bands can have greatest hits albums why can't podcasts have a greatest hits episode? We talked with so many talented artists in 2020 so this is a look back at what the year was like for What Difference Does It Make, your 80s music podcast. If this is your first time visiting our show, it's the perfect introduction to our podcast.

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We couldn't be more delighted to talk with self-described "Big 80s Icon", Mark Goodman. Of course, we all know him as an MTV VJ, but his roots are in radio and so we dig into his start working small town markets, and moving on to free-form radio and what it was like to be in the eye of the hurricane during the beginning of MTV. You can currently hear Mark on the SiriusXM show "Debatable" which can be found on their Volume channel as well as 80s on 8.

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Like many significant moments in our lives, we remember where we were when we heard the devastating news about John Lennon. We tell our stories and then turn it over to a couple people that surrounded the event of December 8. Mark Goodman was on the air on New York radio station WPLJ on the evening of December 8, 1980 and photographer Bob Gruen was a family photographer for the Lennon family, capturing John and Yoko during the recording of Double Fantasy. We also talk with author Tim English. His new book "John Lennon: 1980 Playlist" does a deep dive into the music that captured John's attention in the year he created his new album after a five year self-imposed hiatus.

If you'd like to hear the music that inspired John we have a Spotify playlist for you.

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Jules Shear created a name for himself as a pop songwriter in the 80s writing Top 40 hits like "All Through The Night" for Cyndi Lauper and "If She Knew What She Wants" by The Bangles. He's also the originator of MTV's Unplugged series hosting and playing on the show in its first season back in 1989. He's been releasing his own classic material for nearly 40 years now. His just released album is entitled "Slower" and we sat down with Jules to discuss his songwriting process, Unplugged and of course, "Slower".

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November 6, 1970 marked the first ever gig for the band Aerosmith. It was played at Nipmuc Regional High School Gymnasium in Mendon, Massachusetts. To paraphrase "Walk This Way", we can easily imagine there were definitely at least "three young ladies in the school gym locker" that were staring at the band. The band continues to capture our attention so we talked with author Richard Bienstock to touch on just a few of the reasons on why we love this band. Richard is the author of "Aerosmith: The Ultimate Illustrated History of the Bad Boys From Boston". The book which came out ten years ago has recently been updated with additional material to celebrate their 50th anniversary.

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What Difference Does It Make celebrates the release of Strum and Thrum by talking with members of the Bangtails, The Ferrets, Great Plains, and The Darrows as well as Captured Tracks label head, Mike Sniper. The Strum & Thrum compilation includes an 80+ page booklet with an extensive oral history of the ‘80s indie scene and tons of archival images and ephemera. If you're wondering what "strum and thrum" means well so are most of the bands on this compilation. All we can say is that if you loved college rock from the 80s, this might just be the music you never knew you loved.

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Bob Gruen has snapped so many iconic photos of our rock and roll heroes from Tina Turner to John Lennon to Led Zeppelin to Green Day. His memoir is called "Right Place, Right Time". As Bob tells us, it's a matter of anticipation, patience and skill as well as being in the right place at the right time.. We touch on just a few of the amazing stories in his book including how he created a magical photo of Tina Turner, getting on the bus with the Sex Pistols and why he thinks Bob Dylan hates him.

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