During which period did WLUP The Loop build a personality-driven identity?

I was just a kid when my uncle told me about his morning commute with Steve and Garry on The Loop. From what I remember him saying, and from what I've read since, that personality-driven sound really took off in the late 1970s and into the 1980s. That was the era when they shifted from a straight rock format to letting the DJs become the main attraction.

That shift hit its stride in the late 70s and early 80s, a time when the station’s airwaves felt like a raw, unpredictable canvas. Steve Dahl and Garry Meier weren’t just spinning records, they were painting sonic chaos with their banter, and the whole city tuned in to hear that wild, unpolished energy.

Those late 1970s and early 1980s years were something else entirely, a time when the jocks were the main event and the music almost felt like background noise. I remember tuning in and hearing Steve Dahl rant about the Disco Demolition, and it wasn't about the songs, it was about the personality tearing through the static. That whole era, roughly '79 to '83, felt like the station stopped being a jukebox and became a living, breathing thing with a loud, opinionated voice.