Kasem’s passing a reminder of how far we’ve gone outside the boom box

So I'm working out the other day (yes, it happens, infrequently, like a solar eclipse), listening to music on my phone. Without warning, I'm stumbling and sweating in the vortex of a Kesha-Katy Perry-Taylor Swift medley.

It's a jolting reminder that I share an iTunes account with my daughters, so the music they download gets all up in my iCloud. We interrupt this Springsteen-Jack White-Johnny Cash workout to bring you the lyrical latest on breaking up with an awful, selfish boyfriend.

And they're never, ever, ever, getting back together.

I'm thinking of this after the death last week of Casey Kasem, who hosted American Top 40 on the radio for decades. When I was a kid, about my daughter Tess' age, the show defined Sunday afternoons. With the smell of Sunday dinner still hanging in the air, Kasem counted down the 40 biggest hits in the U.S.A.

My kids now can download about any song at almost anytime from anywhere. Contrast that with 1982. Our phones were dumb, but at least we were resourceful.

I bought records, but my house only had one turntable. It was part of a massive 60s-era console in our living room, its lid covered with framed family photos. So only after some genealogical archaeology, and maternal exasperation, I would sit on shag carpet in the middle of the house and listen to an album. With my parents. Fun.

But I had a radio in my room. And that's where I'd be on Sunday afternoons, listening the top 40 on KKEZ in Fort Dodge. Next to the radio speaker, I would set up an old tape recorder. When Kasem introduced a song I liked, I started recording.

This was not optimal. For example, Joan Jett might be interrupted on tape by your mother yelling 'What are you doing in there? And does the music have to be so loud? She loves rock and roll? I love to hear myself think.”

Just before my 13th birthday, I was given a choice. A day at Adventureland or a cassette boom box. It was tough telling my friends the amusement park trip was canceled. But recording from the radio got a whole lot easier.

Everybody listened. We argued over which songs should be No. 1. We poked fun at sappy 'Long Distance Dedications” and cringed at 'Keep your feet on the ground, and keep reaching for the stars.” We wondered about this strange product called 'Clearasil.” Eventually, post-Clearasil, you grew up and realized that you have your own tastes, and they didn't have to be dictated by the corporate-music-popularity-industtrial complex. Maybe you went to college and horizons expanded. You lived on the same floor with the deadhead guy, the Rembrandts guy, the Depeche Mode guy and the guy who cranked John Denver, set it on repeat, locked his door and left for the weekend. Don't be that guy.

My kids are way ahead of me. They can explore and expand their musical landscape right now. Sure, they like what's popular, or what they're friends like. And yes, they even listen to the radio. But their world is much larger than 40 songs, and it's at their fingertips.

Reruns of American Top 40s still play on satellite radio. Occasionally, I listen, driving around with my kids in the van. They complain the whole time. Fun.

l Comments: (319) 398-8452); todd.dorman@thegazette.com