Not only are they ruining every format on every station they buy, they have DJ’s that make George Bush look like a screaming liberal. It’s like listening to a war propogada station with a few tunes thrown in while they load their rifles.
Especially annoying is they even do that on the hard rock station…the same station that plays music by Joplin, Hendrix and the Doors…Janis, Jimi and Jim must be rolling in their graves to think rock and roll DJ’s have turned into a bunch of single digit IQ warmongers.
Well, I’m not a huge fan of that kind of music, starts to sound all the same to me, but WCCC is one of the five I generally switch between on my ride to work/home. The others being 104.1 (“progressive”), 96.5 (“Top 40”), ESPN Radio, and NPR. But I still hear the same groups/songs even on my random rotations.
Well, I tend to find Wilcow (yes he’s still on) only slightly less stupid than your general morning DJs. But I’d certainly like to shoot the radio programmer who decided Bubba the Love Sponge was good for radio. What an effing bore that guy is.
Who here is from Boston? It was only a couple of weeks ago I was driving in Boston and found 2 or 3 “alternative” stations that were light years better than the one (104.1) we have in Hartford. You know how you start to just “get used” to the stations you have, and then suddenly something comes across your radar that breaks that rut? That was Boston radio for me, even just in a one-hour drive through. Not one week later, I decided to listen to my TV (yes, my TV, I have those digital radio stations) and the alternative channel there absolutely blew away the shit we have in Hartford.
…the station that plays “The Best New Rock and Killer Classics” spends most of their time playing The Doors, Pink Floyd, Rush and Tom Petty.
(In their defense, they’ve gotten a lot better.)
…you have a buddy who DJs for the Top 40 station, fills in on one of the country stations and is also the guy in the mascot costume for the country station.
…the area has 97 country stations, running the gamut from “Fresh New Country” to “New Fresh Country” to “Ancient Moldy Country.”
…a town of 12,000 has an FM talk radio station, despite no one wanting it.
When you would like to hear some decent music at 8AM whilst you are shuttling a 10 year old to camp, but have to constantly change stations because in between the commercials, the DJ’s are talking about sex, on every single station! Geez, give it a rest!
I’m probably repeating myself, but the best station in the Montreal metropolitan area (pop: 3 300 000) is out of Burlington, VT (pop: 200 000) and it sucks too.
You can’t even compare radio in any U.S. city to the level of suckage we endure. If Canadian society can be said to be a mosaic whereas U.S. society is a melting pot, the opposite is true as regards radio. The lowest-common-denominator commercial garbage manages to get played on every station.
Depends on the station. I quit listening to morning drive-time commercial radio because I found the DJs to be rather, well, cookie-cutter versions of each other. For the most part, I couldn’t tell you who belongs to what station. So I listen to WITF, the local NPR affiliate. I may be listening to network radio, but at least they’re intelligent.
I agree with you about the rap stations, though. I just find it hysterically funny that one of the most rural, white-bread areas I’ve ever lived in has such a deep fascination with urban music.
Back in the 1970s in Sydney, the cool rock station was an AM one called 2SM (the FM band at the time in Australia seemed to be all classical music, for some reason). Now when FM finally overtook the AM band, the formerly unassailable 2SM started to look very dated, and its rating slipped. Its owners, the Catholic Church (yes, you read that right), tried various diferent formats over the years, in an attempt to claw back some ratings. It became a Lite ‘n’ Easy station, then a country station, then an “urban country” station, then a classic hits one, etc etc…
Now this is where things became interesting. Every time they’d change their format, there would be a period where they’d go off the air for a few days or weeks for the changeover. Actually, it’s more accurate to say there was a period where they would have gone off the air if they hadn’t had the idea of having a computer play random songs, just to keep the 2SM callsign alive. No announcers, no ads. And it always rated REALLY WELL during these periods. Not better than the leading stations, but better than the various incarnations of the real 2SM did.
Satellite radio kicks butt. I’ve got Sirius, which I can listen to both in the car and via the Internet. I cannot begin to tell you how much I love love love it.
Jawohl, dutchboy208–those stations would be much better, I admit, if I actually liked that brand of rock. Though they play the occassional Really Good Song, the only reason I tune in is because of Love Line.
Central Floridian radio’s actually fairly decent, compared to some of the radio stations I’ve had the distinct displeasure of hearing.
Yes it is. I’m not from Chicago, but my family makes the 2 1/2 hour trip there and back 6 times a year. I don’t know what they played years ago, but they haven’t changed a bit in the past 3 or 4. My wife calls it the old “80’s stoner music” station. We always have a mental checklist for the popular artists: Zepplin: check. AC/DC: check. Van Halen: check. Once they didn’t play any Ozzy for over an hour. We were beginning to think something was wrong.
… they play that “I’m going to Wichita” song every hour. Seriously.
The “radio sucks!” rants are common on bulletin boards from coast to coast. Thing is, though, the corporations aren’t listening. Why? Maybe, just maybe, it’s because the majority really do like listening to songs on hourly rotation, or the same 30 or 40 songs over and over and over again. Most classic rock stations, for instance, play “Freebird” every few hours. Their primary market is working class men 18-55. Think Jim Bob the fortlift driver is complaining that Freebird and Stairway to Heaven are in extremely heavy roation, and that there’s no “deep cuts?” Nope. He’s tone of the voice on the station’s commercials, where they play phone calls complementing the station.
I think there’s more Jim Bobs than Dopers. Far, far more Jim Bobs.
I’d rather hear Stairway and Freebird than all the rest of the crap that gets passed off as “rock”. I recently heard a song announced as “one of the songs that has made rock what it is today.” What was it, do you think? Pink Floyd? The Doors? The Rolling Stones.
Eminem’s “Lose yourself”. It isn’t rock. It hasn’t affected rock. It hasn’t been around long enough to have an influence. Plus it sucks.
I’m amazed that people actually have the opportunity to complain about good songs being overplayed. I’ve never heard Freebird on the radio, ever, and I can’t say I’ve heard Stairway in months. And the two stations I listen to both supposedly play rock. One plays classic rock, which involves far too much 60s pop, and the other is “current rock”, which somehow has the time to play rap and techno and lame 80s synth.
The breakdown of the stations here in Melbourne:
100.3 - Nova - They literally play the same songs every hour. They do a “top ten” on the hour every hour. And apparently people like this. Plus the play the worst music of all time. Plus it’s always on at work.
101.1 - Mix - 80s, 90s light rock and pop.
101.9 - Fox - 90s pop, techno, rap.
104.3 - Gold FM - 60s, 70s, 80s light rock and pop.
105.1 - Triple M - 80s and 90s “rock”, pop, rap, and anything else they feel fits their rock motif - like Devo or something. I heard a promo featuring “Number of the Beast” by Iron Maiden but I’ve never heard it on the station. When they seem to think Metallica’s “Nothing Else Matters” is the hardest of hard rock, you’re in trouble. Even the DJs complain about the crap they have to play.
107ish - Triple J - You will never, ever, hear a song you’ve heard of or is over a month old. Ever. They once referred to “Guns N’ Roses” as though they were extant whilst God was shaping the Earth with His hands, or something.
There are also a bunch of classical stations, and about 50 other lame techno, pop and rap stations.
And I only listen to the radio when in the bathroom, too. And yet I’ve built up this much bile.
MattTheCroc, it’s difficult for me to feel the pain of anyone who just doesn’t hear enough Freebird.
Move here and listen to KZEP 104.5.
As per the OP…
…the rock station only rocks for two weeks out of the year. C101, Corpus Christi, TX. Spring Break. They kick ass for two weeks every spring, when all the college kids invade from cool cities…they play cool modern alternative rock and everyone is happy and the sun shines all day long and rainbows fill the sky…and then when they leave, it goes right back to sob Mullet Rock.
Newsflash: Metallica, AC/DC, and Skynard did NOT close the book on rock. For the love of God, people, join us in the new millenium!
grrrrrr
Thank God I don’t live there anymore. Oh wait, I’m sorry, I might as well…Clear Channel can kiss my fu–wait, this isn’t the Pit.
Terry Hemmert is still around, but not in the morning drive slot anymore. I think she has 9-12. Frank E. Lee is still around as well. It’s still the best radio I’ve ever heard. Even though they do a little too much new music that I don’t care for. But no Nelley, thank Jod.
For me, it’s NPR, KEXP, and the classical (orchestral) station. That’s pretty much it. Well, except when the Mariners are playing; then I go to the AM station.
Classic KING is okay, but they tend to get in a rut composer-wise. Also they tend to hire their DJs (it feels weird to call somebody spinning Beethoven a DJ) based more on the slow, calming tones of their voices than how good they are as technical operators. I heard the following recently:
*–musical selection winds up–
–recorded call sign–*
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-- (sine tone)
DJ: “Huh, that was supposed to be… just a minute…”
Background: –clack clickety click clack–
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO–
DJ: “Okay, we’ll, uh, let’s do this and then I’ll come back with the weather.”