KINK in Portland fits the bill pretty well even though they’re technically a AAA.
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Alt 92.3 Music Changes
- Thread starter MVB13
- Start date
Here we go again
It's been a missing format for many years, Stupid programmers should have jumped on it.
Yup
Aren't stupid programmers busy running commercial alternative stations in other places?
Like New York City?
I didn't have time to respond to this yesterday, as this requires quite a bit of thought in order to respond to.
While this isn't true of every Alternative station, I've noticed that the bulk of the most popular Alternative stations right now have taken a rock-leaning direction, including playing songs by artists more associated with the Active Rock format. The poppier stuff is used more as a pace-breaker than as the core of the playlist. This is probably not a winning formula everywhere but it seems to be working in a number of markets. I've also noticed that a number of new indie rock tracks bear a resemblance to classic heartland rock, wearing influences by Springsteen, Petty, Seger, 1970's ZZ Top, etc. on their sleeves. What's old is new again.
This is coming into conflict with the direction Audacy was steering their Alternatives in, and may be why they've dramatically cut down on the number of new songs, because it's not so much as a lack of Alternative songs to play as it is that the sound of Alternative is changing and they don't know what to do with it. iHeart is showing a less dramatic version of this behavior, as they are being incredibly reluctant to play anything by non-veteran artists right now.
This happened back in 2011, in 2001, and 1991. It happened to Mainstream Rock in 1981 and led to the birth of the Alternative format. This is nothing new. Alternative seems to have this identity crisis every 10 years almost on the dot, and people, both outside and inside the industry, question as to whether it can survive. So far, Alternative has survived every bout of identity crisis, but you never know. We shall see how this goes.
I personally think they should play Wake Me Up by Avicii, that's an alternative rock song, plus they've been playing his remix of A Sky Full Of Stars by Coldplay, and also it's one of my personal favorites next to Starships and Am I Wrong.
FM radio is all about familiarity, now more than ever. It's music fast food for the masses appealing to the lowest common denominator, where you know exactly what you're going to get every time you turn to it.
Alternative radio stations used to thrive as a bit of an outlier in that radio landscape, serving a more adventurous audience that wanted something new and different. But a lot of that audience has now fled to steaming platforms that can super-serve their unique tastes. Those platforms have no problem serving up artists on indie labels where some of the most interesting alternative acts reside now, while commercial FM stations are pretty much slaves to the major labels that have gone through their own massive consolidation since the 90s, and don't have nearly as much to offer when it comes to alternative genre.
As much as I love what alternative FM radio was, and wish it could carry on as a great source of discovery, entertainment and influence, I just don't think commercial FM radio can do it any more. They need to play the most homogenous stuff that attracts an older, passive audience that just likes to hear the songs they've known for years. And there's a symbiotic relationship between radio and the major labels which have narrowed their focus over the years to now offer almost nothing but the most predictable and profitable types of mainstream artists.
Remember, too, that the labels almost without exception pay little or no attention to the airplay of anything except their current releases.
If you work at a gold-based station, you will seldom if ever get a call or visit from a record promoter. Occasionally a label may put some promotion effort into a "greatest hits" release, but other than that, all their time involves new artists, new releases and related activities.
It's not fear of new releases because they are new but because the appeal is so fragmented today. As I have mentioned, alternative rock has subdivided into a number of subsets, where the likes of one are the hates of another and the "ho hum I don't care" of yet another group.
So if you know that the broad alternative audience all like a lot of older "gold" songs but are as split as Republicans and democrats on new songs, you play mostly the old stuff.
The fact is they do a lot of new music discovery and local hosts in other formats, most notably country. It's a well-coordinated effort that happens between the labels and top rated radio stations. They organize live events so radio listeners can meet new artists before their music is released. There is also a coordinated effort between radio stations and concert venues. But for some reason it doesn't happen in alternative.
But country music exemplifies what I was talking about most of all. The whole universe is controlled by a small number of labels and songwriter-insiders churning out formulaic, predictable, homogenous music from a small universe of ultra-familiar artists. There nothing new about the names and voices behind pretty much everything on the country playlist.
That may be your view, but it doesn't fit with the reality. This past year, several new indie labels have had breakthrough hits with new artists. The currents played cover a very broad group of musical styles. More than a dozen new artists had their first hits this year.
I alluded to this but didn’t outright say that when I was talking about the sound of indie changing. One of the most popular songs from TikTok right now is Seventeen Going Under by Sam Fender. It has an obvious Springsteen influence, and I have it under good authority that it’s getting a heavy push in the US next year. Other indie songs with strong heartland rock influence are increasingly shooting up the chart. The top song on Alternative is actually a Bob Seger-influenced indie song, BRIGHTSIDE by The Lumineers, who are re-inventing themselves after a decade of indie folk music.
Audacy had been pursuing the pop audience the last couple of years and all of a sudden heartland rock revival is what’s cool in Alternative? When that is potentially a completely different audience from who they were pursuing? No wonder they contracted their new music selection. The labels are increasingly sending rootsy indie over pop indie, when Audacy’s strategy and desired audience hinged on pop indie.
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The first time I heard that one, I thought it was the Killers, who are getting NO airtime on Alt with their latest release (decent charting at AAA). It’s about time it gets played in the states, as it’s been on the UK charts for a while.
I can’t speak for the other segments of the Alt audience, but if they play more of this, Lumineers, and Cold War Kids and WAY less Machine Gun Kelly, Billie Eilish, and JXDN and I’ll listen more. The last year or so has been especially brutal on my ears for commercial Alternative.
What happened with The Killers is that Pressure Machine didn't make the label very happy. They didn't see a marketable single from the album, so they just dumped the whole thing to AAA and let the format choose a single (it wound up being "Quiet Town"). They are not going to bother with sending to Alt/Hot AC/Pop from the album unless "Quiet Town" winds up breaking out.
To be fair with Audacy, they did pick up one of the heartland rock-influenced indie songs, "I Don't Live Here Anymore" by The War On Drugs, which is a crossover from AAA. You hear the Springsteen influence from the riff, and the singers of indie band Lucius add backing vocals that give the song a glistening pop sheen. They're probably doing a lot of research to see if this shift in indie is viable for their 2022 strategy.
Other songs on the Alt format right now that have obvious heartland rock influence are "Head Right" by Wilderado, "Ramon Ayala" by Giovannie & The Hired Guns (which also has grunge influence), and "The Hardest Cut" by Spoon. With pop-punk continuing to surge, it definitely looks like guitars are back on Alt, which is going to make things tricky for stations who were betting on pop.
Pop will always have a place on Alternative, but if it really is receding back to its usual role as playlist seasoning, the programmers and executives have some big decisions to make, especially since guitar rock and the pop audience isn't always the most compatible. Then again "Beggin'" was a huge pop hit and there are guitars all over it, and there seems to be a random alternative rock/indie rock song or two blowing up on TikTok every month, so maybe pop listeners are ready to hear more.
I really don’t understand the insistence on keeping Kid Liaori, Machine Gun Kelly, Billie Eilish, and JXDN in the rotation. I’ve noticed that some Audacy alt stations have dialed back on these performers (notably KNRK in Portland), and the overall sound of the station is better. With the conversation on cohesion and fragmentation, these are some of the most polarizing artists being played right now.
WRRV, the Alt station in the Poughkeepsie area, has been alternative rock for around 20 years. According to the article in Wikipedia, it has been consistently successful. Linked below is its current playlist.
BTW, Jonah from the WNSH 94.7 morning show, when it was Country, has just been named as the new afternoon personality there.
Playing on WRRV 92.7
BTW, Jonah from the WNSH 94.7 morning show, when it was Country, has just been named as the new afternoon personality there.
Playing on WRRV 92.7
Ha! Wonder who wrote that. They don't subscribe to the Poughkeepsie book, but they show up in Hudson Valley. They last time they were rated, it was a .7 in Fall 2020. Most people in the area apparently listen to NYC stations.
Looking at the Alt 92.3 playlist, while it does seem to be a bit more focused, it really is a head-scratcher as to why they still insist on throwing in Gen Z rap/alternative hybrids. Feel like the approach should be to embrace listeners around my age (38) and the alternative we grew up with while also nudging us towards new acts we'd appreciate. The Kid Laroia, Machine Gun Kelly, JXDN are just NOT relevant to these audiences but there are several Alt acts out there now that I think would work well for a 20-40 demo (Royal Blood, Tame Impala, Twin Shadow, Marina, Joywave, Beach Bunny, etc) without sounding so jarringly different from the 90's/00's standards.
Also, as many have pointed out, the reliance on Alt crossover songs that are essentially hot AC records (Third eye Blind, Nine Days, Hoobastank, etc) is also a poor choice.
Also, as many have pointed out, the reliance on Alt crossover songs that are essentially hot AC records (Third eye Blind, Nine Days, Hoobastank, etc) is also a poor choice.
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