Exotica (1994)

8、WFMU–Recognition and Cultural Influence

WFMU was named “Best Radio Station in the Country” by Rolling Stone magazine for four consecutive years (1991-1994), and has also been dubbed the best radio station in either NYC or the US by The Village Voice, New York Press, and CMJ, among others. The station also won three awards (“Best Specialty Programming”, “Most Eclectic Programming”, and “Music Director Most Likely To Never Sell Out”) at the 2006 CMJ College Radio Awards.

A New York Times Magazine feature article called WFMU “a station whose name has become like a secret handshake among a certain tastemaking cognoscenti”, and cites Velvet Underground founder Lou Reed, The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and playwright Eric Bogosian as avowed fans of the station.

Other notable fans and supporters of WFMU include Neutral Milk Hotel frontman Jeff Mangum, screenwriter/director Ethan Coen, MAKE magazine or-in-chief and Boing Boing co-founder Mark Frauenfelder, Led Zeppelin lead singer Robert Plant, musician Suzanne Vega, artist Cindy Sherman, indie rock superstar Ted Leo, Sonic Youth guitarists Lee Ranaldo4 and Thurston Moore, comic book artist and writer Evan Dorkin, The Cars vocalist/record producer Ric Ocasek, musician Max Tundra, television talk-show host Conan O’Brien and Blixa Bargeld, singer of the German Band Einstürzende Neubauten5.

WFMU is cred for playing a large part in the early-90s resurgence of the Exotica and Lounge music phenomenon, via WFMU DJ Irwin Chusid and his role in the re-issue of the music of Esquivel. Chusid also popularized the acceptance of “outsider music” as a genuine musical genre, through his weekly (and now defunct) Incorrect Music show on WFMU. The discovery and popularization of “outsider” artists such as Jandek and The Langley Schools Music Project can be directly attributed to Chusid and his programming on WFMU.

The name of the indie-rock sub-genre now known as “Lo-Fi” music originated at WFMU in the 1980s, with DJ William Berger’s weekly program, “Lo-Fi.”

The Air America Radio show The Majority Report had its origins on WFMU in 2003, when Janeane Garofalo and Sam Seder appeared as guests on The Best Show on WFMU with Tom Scharpling, and as a result of the appearance, were later approached by Air America Radio to host their own show on the fledgling “liberal” radio network.

Although WFMU has traditionally eschewed news-oriented programming, the station volunteered its airwaves in September, 2001 to become the temporary home in the New York area for Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! program (which was renamed Democracy Now! In Exile), after it was “banished” from WBAI and the Pacifica Radio Network during a highly controversial “coup” of WBAI’s station management by Pacifica’s national Board of Directors.

In a similar example of its support of community broadcasting, WFMU began voluntarily hosting the webcast of legendary New Orleans Jazz station, WWOZ, when its studio and transmitter were destroyed in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. WFMU also took online donations on behalf of WWOZ, raising over $70,000 towards the rebuilding of the station.

WFMU also received worldwide attention in May 2001, when national and international media outlets covered DJ Glen Jones’s successful attempt to break the Guinness World Record for longest consecutive radio broadcast, staying on the air a full 100 hours, 41 seconds.

Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain was shown reading WFMU’s (now defunct) Catalog of Curiosities, on the set during taping breaks of their famous 1993 appearance on MTV Unplugged6.

A famous 1990 telephone performance on WFMU7 by Daniel Johnston was the primary inspiration for filmmaker Jeff Feuerzeig to create the documentary film, The Devil and Daniel Johnston. The film won the award for Best Documentary Director at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.

The late Jeff Buckley made his radio debut on WFMU in late 1991 and returned numerous times before signing with Columbia Records and achieving international stardom.

In 2006, WFMU was awarded of a grant from the New York State Music Fund, a program created by the Office of the New York State Attorney General to make contemporary music of all genres more available and accessible to diverse audiences and within New York State. WFMU’s grant included funds to create a podsafe online music library, to be called The Free Music Archive, which will be launched in late 2008. The Fund grew out of settlements with major recording companies investigated for violating state and federal laws prohibiting “pay for play” (payola). Grant winners were chosen on criteria that included, among other things, their record of broadening awareness of artists, genres or styles with limited access to commercial broadcast or other mass distribution vehicles.8

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Exotica (1994) Soundtrack – Exotica

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