mondoradio said:
You missed the point. The point is that you can't let your personal feelings get in the way of deciding what you program to your listeners. Soulcrusher, for instance, wouldn't last 5 minutes as a programmer in a commercial setting because he can't seperate his personal feelings about the songs from what the listener actually wants to hear. He'd replace all the familiar tunes (the ones he conisiders "overplayed") with album cuts and obscure stuff and whatever fits his very narrow definition of Alternative music, and before you know it, he'd have 5 people listening and be out on his ass. That's life in commercial radio. The average listener doesn't listen or pay attention to the music the way we do, and it's best to try to put yourself in their shoes and put your own music snobbery away for when you are listening on your private time.
Maybe WLIR (Suffolk County, NY) and WJSE (AC / Cape May) can afford to be a little more daring because of the market they're in. I understand that radio is a business and if I were a PD I would be playing Fall Out Boy and My Chemical Romance despite my utter contempt for these corporate pop/rock acts - I just wouldn't be giving these acts 15-20 + spins a week well after they have gone Recurrent.
What would I do differently with G Rock, you may ask? Not that much, truthfully. I would dig a little deeper into '80s and '90s retro (play some more Pixies, Replacements, Depeche Mode, James, Placebo, Sonic Youth, Primus, Radiohead and others), play a few some harder songs (Tool, RATM, SOAD, Ministry, White Zombie - these acts all have received decent rotation on Alternative either currently or at one time) and add a few more currents (judging by the current sound G Rock is going for, Bjork and Arcade Fire would fit in better than Evanescence and Pearl Jam's Who cover) - right now they're listing a profile for an act that they don't even play (The Almost). To accomodate them, I would cut out some of the teenybopper pop/punk which is probably a concession to the WBBO audience (no need to play Wheatus, All American Rejects, Sum 41 and Yellowcard anymore, and Green Day and Blink 182 should still be played, but not nearly as much as they do now) and some of the generic post-grunge crud that they play (they don't currently play Nickelback, 3 Doors Down and Hinder but continue to play Shinedown, Puddle Of Mudd and Fuel a whole bunch - what's the difference between these acts?), and play some album tracks from core artists (Nirvana, Pearl Jam, STP, Sublime, etc.) in lieu of overplaying their worn-out hits, which would still see some rotation. This does not represent my personal taste - I just think people who like kiddie music and trailer park rock are better served elsewhere, as are those looking to hear
only the biggest hits of the past 15 years.
hubcity said:
How many of the bands G-Rock played (and indeed FM106.3, who weren't immune - hell, we played Mr. Mister...what were we *thinking*?) are no longer played, because they rapidly learned to regret playing them? The trick, I think, is to play things you won't ever regret, and that's a job for a PD/MD combo's guts.
Thankfully, someone at G Rock took out the trash. They were playing the likes of John Mayer, Five For Fighting, Avril Lavigne, Vanessa Carlton, Nelly Furtado, Sheryl Crow and others a few years ago - all while branding themselves as "Your Rock Alternative". Even when G Rock first launched as a two-station broadcast, much of their programming consisted of fluff like Nickelback, Creed, 3 Doors Down and other soccer-mom fodder - they still sounded like they were competing with the PLJs of the world rather than being a true Alternative with all the AC crossover titles they were playing. Also, I don't think they were playing
anything from the '80s at that point, save for The Breakfast Club and the rare Cure song.
hubcity said:
It's easy to criticize SoulCrusher (and fun, too!) but there's a point he's trying to get at, and that's this: try to figure out what will embarrass you in the future, and don't get well-known for playing it now.
The reality is, though, that you probably *do* want to play it, but probably only where you'll get the most bang for your buck. I think this is one thing G-Rock has backward; they seem less adventurous in the evenings, and I think that's a wasted opportunity - if someone's listening at 8PM, they're choosing you over television, so you'd better give them something that makes that choice a satisfying one. And if someone's listening at 3am, why bother them with the status quo? They're probably more receptive to something that's a bit more out there.
But that's in my little corner of the world. I'm actually rather impressed with what they've been doing lately. It's not what I would do, but it doesn't have to be. My biggest beef with them lately is that their retro hour stuff is falling into "anything from the eighties is well-loved by everyone" trap, and I'm sorry, but Culture Club's "Miss Me Blind" and Men At Work's "It's A Mistake" just doesn't belong on an alternative station in 2007. A simple relevance check will take care of that, though, and I think they're capable of it.
Due to the station's soft lean, I remember that in the past they were quick to jump on an act that went nowhere on Alternative but took off big time on the AC formats, like Maroon 5 and The Fray. Even today, they play the big hit ballads from Fuel, Staind and Papa Roach so much that I think they have easily reached the point of being well-known for playing it. Only recently have they started to break away from this, playing a lot more '80s and '90s during the day - the only problem is that the selection of Currents have suffered as a result. But they really sound almost like a new station now, totally different (and far better, IMO) from what they were 2 years ago.
As for sounding less adventurous at night, who knows? Is this the result of much personnel shuffling? All I know is that I don't listen at night as often because now they're starting to sound the way that the old G Rock sounded during the day. I was up late Monday night / Tuesday morning and couldn't get over how much safe, played-out material I was hearing. The station is easily at its best during Terrie Carr's and Matt Knight's shifts, and they seem to loosen up a bit on weekends also. I just hope they can find a way to maintain the momentum from the afternoon to make it last through the night as well - maybe they can go heavier on the edgier music and '90s tracks during this time.
Culture Club and Men At Work were requested, hence the reason why they were played on the Retro Request Hour. I still would rather hear that than some worn-out Oasis (Champagne Supernova) or Jane's Addiction (Jane Says) that have been played recently. I usually never miss Retro Request or 5 O'Clock Shuffle unless I have something important happening at the time, because there's always a good chance of hearing something unexpected. They're usually more on the money with quality control during this feature than they are during the regular rotation, where something like Puddle Of Mudd can actually slip through. I mean, Puddle Of freakin' Mudd - come on now. Do you actually want to be the station that proudly plays syrupy tripe like "Blurry" and utter idiocy like "She Hates Me"? Not to mention the fact that these guys are a bunch of brain-dead mooks in real life - just listen to their lyrics, they rank down there with the worst of Avril Lavigne. But I digress, once again.
