One of the most interesting revelations from talking with iHeartRadio host and recent Radio Hall of Fame inductee Martha Quinn is hearing her describe how she now regularly encounters people who never saw her in her first career iteration as one of the original five MTV VJs.
It shouldn’t be surprising.
At this point, she’s been a radio host far longer than she was on MTV. But for anyone who grew up when MTV first arrived and reshaped music and pop culture, it’s hard to imagine not thinking of seeing her on the screen in your living room before hearing her over the speakers in your car.
That’s not meant to intimate in any way that Quinn is trying to distance herself from her MTV days. In fact, she says one of the things that means the most to her today is hearing from people who were impacted by the network’s launch.
She frequently talks to all kinds of people the network influenced. The stories range from military personnel who told Quinn they served overseas and watched MTV on VHS tapes. Others came from small towns, where people struggled to find their identity before the network arrived.
“If you were an indie kid in a smaller town, you might’ve suddenly felt like, oh, I’m not alone. That is so important to me and it’s the most important part about MTV,” said Quinn.
That experience also shapes how she approaches her radio show today. She has chosen to stop referring to herself as an original VJ. Instead she decided to call herself “your friend from the MTV era.” With that, she envisions her show as a place where people from that original MTV generation—or anyone who loves the music and culture of that time—can come together.
“It’s an unspoken agreement that we are family,” explains Quinn. “I start every single day by saying ‘group hug,’ because we’re going to hang out. We’re all in it together. It’s a good, positive vibe. That’s the unwritten understanding when you come to a space like mine.”
That’s not just lip service. Being the leader of this family is something she takes very seriously, but it didn’t necessarily start that way. At first, when she began on the air in 2005 on SiriusXM, it was just fun to play music from the MTV days. An opportunity to revisit that period of her life.
As time went on, she started to realize how much the music meant to people.
“I started to notice people saying, ‘it helps me to hear this music. MTV got me through tough times, and this helps and uplifts me,’” Quinn said.
As that message became more ubiquitous, Quinn began to realize there was more gravity to what she was doing.
“I started to hear that message and increasingly it became not a game to me to play Hungry Like the Wolf. I started to take it very seriously and started to feel like this is my lane,” explained Quinn. “Everybody’s got some kind of way of uplifting people, and fate has given me this as my way.”
She began thinking of her show as her “Island of Awesome,” because many people say listening has helped them through tough times, Quinn focuses on making her show a positive oasis.
“I’m like a junkyard dog. I parole my perimeters and I try my absolute best to have it be a space of all good vibes. I want to be sure to never be the person who causes a bruise on someone’s day,” said Quinn.
The island is open to anyone, regardless of generation. Some listeners grew up with Quinn; others did not.
“I’m always saying things like if you were with me back in the day when these songs were brand new, you might be wondering what to do about that arthritis pain,” explained Quinn. “There are also a ton of people between sixteen and thirty-five who love the music, like my son who knows every ‘80s song, so I have to be mindful of that.”
The positive vibes on the island don’t come only from Quinn. She also credits the music of the era, which she sees as coming from a place of positivity fueled by MTV’s launch. “There was such an excitement in the music business at that time,” Quinn recalls.
“Like if you’re Huey Lewis and you were recording, you knew you would be part of this brand new, super exciting thing. I think that infused an excitement into so many performers and it comes through. There was a jolt of new energy throughout popular music,” says Quinn.
While chatting, it became clear that it wasn’t the music that led to her induction into the Radio Hall of Fame. It’s her vision of the “Island of Awesome” and the goals she has for the show’s impact that earned Quinn this accolade, even if it was a surprise to her.
“That was so mind-blowing to me. I want to say thank you to Dennis Green and Craig Kitchin and everyone who checked yes next to my name and helped move the process along,” said Quinn. “It really is such an honor. I honestly cannot believe it. I hope every day to be worthy of it.”
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Mike Stern is a Classic Rock columnist and Features writer for Barrett Media. He has been with Jacobs Media consulting stations in the Classic Rock, Rock, Alternative and AAA world for more than a decade. Prior to that he programmed stations in Chicago, Detroit, Denver Las Vegas and other markets. He also worked as News/Talk Editor for Radio and Records, wrote about Top 40 Radio for Billboard Magazine and had his own radio talent coaching business called Talent Mechanic.
