With regards to 97.1 The River, as a rock music fan, I LOVE to critique the rock stations around town. Yes, 97.1 The River is playing Rush's Tom Sawyer. This, however, is not the shocker but instead, it's the fact that The River is now playing Rush in the first place.
Now, they have been playing Rush a good bit over the past few days but it's just a select few cuts. This is where I have issues with ALL of the rock stations in Atlanta.
Whether it be Rock 100.5's Rock format, The Rivers Classic Rock format, Projects Active rock format or 99X's Alternative format; The issue with Atlanta rock stations is they stick to a selected playlist that only consists of huge hits. Rush has plenty of other hits that the River is not touching and even some that were not huge hits but were played on radio and to this day, is still played on big classic rockers around the country.
Look at 99x, they play two (2) songs from The Strokes. Never mind that The Strokes had like 6 or so songs that made it on the Alternative charts at one point or another. What about Arcade Fire? 99X, Atlanta's "Alternative", will not even touch Arcade Fire which was a band that won the Grammys last year. This would be like q100 not playing GaGa or something.
Is there a station that even plays Jethro Tull, Head East, Uriah Heep, deeper stuff from Pink Floyd (I'm sick of money)....
That is why rock does horrible in Atlanta. Limited playlists with way too many repeats.
If this subject interests you (some of you may not be), check out the following sites as great examples of both classic rock and alternative rock stations.
Classic Rock: Hey, it's in our backyard. Check out their playlist. Station is KZ 106 out of Chattanooga. Most songs are played in here in Atlanta but look closely and you will see about every hour, a b-side is added to the mix.
http://wskz.tunegenie.com/onair/
Alternative Rock: This station is out of San Diego. Yes, many of the songs are played on 99x but look closely and you will see songs that were once played by 99x that have died off the station ever since it was resurrected a few years back. Here is the playlist
http://www.fm949sd.com/onair/broadcasthistory.aspx