Power 99 Playlist - May 17,1992

[CHRles]

Rick Stacy was the PD at WAPW at the time, with Leslie Fram serving as the APD. By the end of the year the call letters would change to WNNX, and the station would first evolve to a Modern leaning CHR (similar to Z-100 New York and 104 KRBE Houston) before going full-blown Modern Rock.

Power 99 May 22, 1992

1 Red Hot Chilli Peppers Under The Bridge
2 Brian Adams Thought I'd Died And Gone To Heaven
3 Sophie B Hawkins Damn I Wish I Was Your Lover
4 L.A. Guns It's Over Now
5 Michael Jackson In The Closet
6 Prince Money Don't Matter Tonight
7 En Vogue My Lovin
8 Jon Secada Just Another Day
9 Color Me Badd Slow Motion
10 R. Kelly She's Got That Vibe
11 Outfield Closer To Me
12 Corina Now That you're Gone
13 Genesis Hold On My Heart
14 The Cure Friday I'm In Love
15 Ugly Kid Joe Everything About You
16 Blue Pearl Can You Feel The Passion
17 Kym Sims Take My Advice
18 The KLF Last Train To Trancentral
19 Storm Show Me The way
20 Def Leppard Let's Get Rocked
21 Cover Girls Wishing On A Star
22 Curtis Stigers Sleeping With The Lights On
23 Tom Cochrane Life Is A Highway
24 Right Said Fred Don't Talk Just Kiss
25 The Cure High
26 Lightning Seeds The Life of Riley
27 Ephraim Lewis It Can't Be Forever
28 Bonnie Rait Not The only One
29 Sugarcubes Hit
30 ZZ Top Viva Las Vegas
31 Kris Kross Jump
32 Jody Watley I'm The One You Need
33 Sir Mix-A-Lot Baby Got Back
34 Amy Grant I Will Remember You
35 Celeine Dion If You Asked Me To
Adds Nia Peeples Faces of love
Mariah Carey I'll Be There
Arrested Development Tennessee
Bronx Style Bob Forbidden Love
On Michael Bolton Steel Bars
Annie Lennox Why
Wilson Phillips You Won't See Me Cry

 

[Insideradio]

No wonder they flipped to 99x! That playlist stunk! Only a few songs still played today...

 

[CHRles]

Thx for the comments.
You gotta remember that in the early 90s is when Top 40 radio was getting in trouble in the ratings. The younger audiences wanted the stations to sound very different from what the older demos wanted. Additionally, half the radio stations in America were in the red so there was an urgency to flip to more adult friendly formats - especially Hot AC or Country.
To Power 99's credit, they tried to remain musically balanced. They played certain Dance titles that were popular at major market CHRs (like 104 KRBE in Houston), they played the big AC artists to appeal to the upper end of the female demo (Celeine Dion, Michael Bolton), many of the big Rhythmic hits that were starting to dominate the Billboard Hot 100, some of the big Rock records on MTV, some pure Pop, and anything that would fit the overall sound of the station and the market. Their sweepers were bigger than life, and the DJs were great too.

Honestly, it would have been so much better had Power 99 chose to stuck it out, remaining a CHR while Star 94 would have evolved into Modern Rock. I think many on this board would agree.

 

[jabba17]

Honestly, it would have been so much better had Power 99 chose to stuck it out, remaining a CHR while Star 94 would have evolved into Modern Rock. I think many on this board would agree.

In principle, yes. Although I could never have seen it happening--Star 94 was too content (or, rather, stuck in a rut) in their AC match with Peach and B98.5, which had thinned out three other AC stations in the last 5-8 years (Fox to oldies, Lite 106 to country, and WLTA/Warm 100 to Power 99). It would have been and was a much shorter trip for Power 99--which always had AOR tendencies--than Star 94, which had barely shaken off the 94Q staleness--indeed, you could argue that the 94Q/Star 94 flip was just branding as Star 94 pretty much stayed in the AC format until Power 99 flipped to 99X.

 

[DToTheJ]

Wow, thanks for sharing!

11 Outfield Closer To Me

The Outfield? Is this the same 80's one-hit wonder Outfield of the "Your Love"?

Adds Nia Peeples Faces of Love

Anyone else remember that post-Arsenio fiasco "The Party Machine with Nia Peeples"?

 

[WBIMDJ]

With tracks from The Sugarcubes, The Cure (not just "Friday I'm In Love"), The Lightning Seeds (On top 40, really?) on that playlist you could tell they were gearing to switch to alternative at some point...

 

[monkeymanmoi]

With tracks from The Sugarcubes, The Cure (not just "Friday I'm In Love"), The Lightning Seeds (On top 40, really?) on that playlist you could tell they were gearing to switch to alternative at some point...

I agree. Those alt tracks were the only thing I was interested in hearing at the time. When they flipped it really didn't come as a big shock.