Interesting that WDZN in Maryland just flipped from classic hits to an alternative/active rock hybrid. Apparently this is a viable format, in the right markets.
WDZN Stream
WDZN Stream
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KROQ
- Thread starter CassChopper96
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It's a 1Khz station in Cumberland MD. I bet the deer just love this station. I've been in that area. Not a lot of people.
Their first song after they flipped was "Smells Like Teen Spirit." They're taking a lot of chances musically.
Everybody wants to be KPNT…
That's why Alternative stations need to have great air talent and a top notch promotions department to give the station the right image. If you run this format like a jukebox, it will fail. Especially, in this day an age with streaming companies like Spotify. You have to give the listeners a compelling reason to tune in that goes beyond the music. You know this is successful when people are willing to tune in and continue to listen, even if they don't really care for a small percentage of the music.
Then Kroq better start going live and local from 7 to midnight.
Country music is not Seagram's. It's not the mixer that mixes with everything. They made that mistake with hip-hop in the 1990s. We got a lot of pioneering, but ultimately forgettable (and more than a few regrettable-Nu-Metal, anyone?) crossovers. But not much else.
And with Country-whatever, it's happening again...
Only when it's called country. You put a label on it, and the prejudices take over.
But if you listen to the music without knowing what it is, some of it has all the elements of alternative rock.
The bands are realizing the country format is more inclusive, so they have a better chance of connecting there.
For instance: "wine, beer, whiskey" by Little Big Town. Alternative WIIS in Key West played it.
Yes, it's a drinking song, it's Key West, and formats there can be a bit eclectic. But it didn't sound out of place.
Yes, it's a drinking song, it's Key West, and formats there can be a bit eclectic. But it didn't sound out of place.
Jason Aldean's "Trouble With a Heartache" and the Cole Swindell/Lainey Wilson duet "Never Say Never" have some of that crunchy alt sound as well.
I wonder if the current No. 1, Chris Stapleton's "You Should Probably Leave," would work at alt, or is it best suited for AAA, where I assume it have been getting played since before it was chosen as a single.
If alt were in more of a mid-'90s Lilith Fair mood, songs like Miranda Lambert's "Bluebird" and that gorgeous Carly Pearce/Ashley McBryde duet "Never Wanted to Be That Girl" could have a chance, but the format doesn't seem very female-friendly right now. Yes, as MarkW has pointed out many times, some stations are trying to attract more advertiser-desirable female listeners with gold from Third Eye Blind and the like, but they're not adding many songs actually sung by women, right?
The problem is that, other than the big older songs, there are very few newer ones that the whole alternative rock public like. There are many that are loved by some, liked by others, tolerated by still more people and detested by a large group. Take each song in the genre, and nearly all split into one or two of the partisan groups, but are fairly well disliked by others. So, unless you want every third song to drive away a big piece of the audience, you only play the widely accepted songs.
Well over 100,000 people in its 60 dbu.
The question is "why?" There is very, very little "local" that can be inserted into that format at night. Better to have a really good talent, irrespective of where they are.
It's also a time slot when all radio listening falls off a cliff, right? Or are alt fans somehow more likely to be using radio from 7 to midnight than fans of other genres?
I don't know if this is still the case these days, but back in the 2000's and I was a teenaged card-carrying member of "Alt Nation", yes Alt listeners tended to flock to the 7-midnight slot. That's when the new songs were more likely to come on with a DJ who sounded younger and hipper than the daytime people mixing skits, snark, and trivia with the music. It was like having an older brother or sister on the air and they had all of the cool new stuff to show you.
I remember one of the old Q101 skits being them mixing the "cowbell" SNL skit with Christopher Walken in with the intro to Queens of the Stone Age's "Little Sister", aha.
Am noticing more rock and less pop on KROQ this morning. For example heard back to back: System of a Down, Maneskin, Nirvana. Something is happening, maybe a gradual shift perhaps.
I can do without the same ole nirvana tunes. Now they just have to get people to notice
Nirvana is to Alternative, what Led Zeppelin is to AOR/Classic Rock. It's a defining music group for the format. Will always be there.
You can do without them, but they test well. They'd still play the Thompson Twins if they tested well. It's not about you, it's about the test. It's the radio equivalent of "nothing personal, it's just business".
But that's Key West. It is it's own alcohol-fueled musical organism that's off the grid from everywhere else. That's why I can understand why Country party tunes would work on a station like WIIS. And bless 'em for it. But I look more to stations like WEQX and KEXP for an actual direction.
The trouble with mainstream modern Country is Alternative fans in general everywhere else have had a long running and often particular annoyance with it. And any disturbingly frequent number of songs about pickin' up Lurleen in my pickup an' goin' to the tractor pull on a Friday night on mainstream Alternative rock radio these days are going to viewed with suspicion.
Just sayin'. It isn't like it isn't a nice gesture. But it won't be long before somebody catches on.....
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