WRFF-Thoughts..

[raydofan]

1) Music transitions are horrible. I mean a Creed sound-alike into "Add it Up" by the Femmes? Klunk. Plus, they do that thing where they play that same Bob Marley song everyone else plays...

2) Whoever is loading the stolen MP3s or AACs, please avoid the ones with that watery quality, k? I mean the "Add It Up" edit was nice, but get something around 192kbps. Or get a CD and do it yourself.

3) Now playing another generic early 2000s Creed sound alike. Guys, just s**tcan all of that stuff. This it what drives people away from the radio. I should be hearing Soundgarden. Take a chance. How about Suicide? Oops, forgot..this is CC radio. Neu? KMFDM? Even NIN.

We'll see what the numbers are...

Alt is dead, IMHO.

 

[PhillyWatch]

Chris Isaak-Wicked Game 2:30 PM

I pray to god this one was a mistake somehow. Who would conciously add this into the lineup of a supposed Alternative Rock station. IMHO, Skin Radio totally owns WRFF, but I'll go with the notion that WRFF's paint hasn't even dried yet, so no real judging can happen. I do like the Barenaked Ladies and Dave Matthews that they play. They need more stuff like that, stuff not HEARD ANYWHERE ELSE on the dial. Not awful Nickelback and Train and is it just me or do they play Semi-Charmed Life EVERY EFFING HOUR ON THE HOUR?

 

[Wexler]

I heard that too - turned the dial laughing. I also heard Drops of Jupiter the other morning...terrible!

It's a "pop-rock" station. That's what they are going for, and you can clearly see it in the heavy rotation songs of the last week:

Hey There Delilah Plain White T's
What I've Done Linkin Park
Paralyzer Finger Eleven
Love You More Ginuwine
Pain Three Days Grace
Read My Mind Killers
Kill 30 Seconds To Mars
First Time Lifehouse
Face Down The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus
Steady As She Goes Raconteurs
Love And Memories O.A.R.
All At Once Fray
Welcome To The Black Parade My Chemical Romance
Breath Breaking Benjamin
Hate Me Blue October
Better than Me Hinder
Forever Papa Roach
Lazy Eye Silversun Pickups
This Ain't A Scene, It's An Arms Race Fall Out Boy
Dashboard Modest Mouse

That ain't a station targeting men 25-44...that's a station targeting 18-24 male female split, which is going to push their 18-34 stations down in rank.

Another problem is that they have 500 songs in rotation, which isn't bad, but when you aren't running spots everything becomes repetitive! They need to go deeper, and fast, because when I turn the station on it feels like I hear the same songs over and over again...and the oh wow is the "oh wow, I can't believe they just played Len "Steal My Sunshine".


The only thing promising is that with this PPM thing they don't have to wait 3 months to know they are missing the mark.

 

[Jarvis]

Chris Isaak-Wicked Game 2:30 PM

Yeah I happened to hear that one too. Not a bad song, but it belongs on B101 or maybe Ben. Remember what killed alternative radio? It was trying to be everything to everyone, thus not being alternative at all. Either go pop, or go alternative, but these horrible transitions from Creed to the Fems are just awful. Y-Rock on XPN is an excellent example of how alternative radio should sound. Or FNX in Boston. Currents, Recurrents, mixed with older alternative. But I don't expect this from CC. You know, as it's been stated before, they really don't care how the station sounds. They are just trying to knock MMR down a peg, so Power is higher in the rankings. I also like the liners that state " No DJs that think they're funny..." Umm, you're just too cheap to higher them CC.
They just did this in Rochester, NY as well, by converting a rimshot station to country to knock down the market leading WBEE. This way CC owned WHAM is number one. I know this has always been done, but it seems worse now than ever. Young people are never going to embrace radio again if this keeps up... In the meantime, I'll put my Sirius back on.

 

[RunWithScissors]

Why would you even mention Skin Radio, who the hell wants to hear Rap ghetto in-between the sets, give me a break, the dial is saturated with Rap and the Skin listener has to put up with it on a so-called great alternative format. 1045 beats Skin hands down. Give the station a chance already....

 

[raydofan]

Why would you even mention Skin Radio, who the hell wants to hear Rap ghetto in-between the sets, give me a break, the dial is saturated with Rap and the Skin listener has to put up with it on a so-called great alternative format. 1045 beats Skin hands down. Give the station a chance already....

I think some rap would work well in a alt format. De La Soul had some play on alt fromats back in the day.

(So, still no thoughts on those PiL lyrics?)

 

[PhillyWatch]

Why would you even mention Skin Radio, who the hell wants to hear Rap ghetto in-between the sets, give me a break, the dial is saturated with Rap and the Skin listener has to put up with it on a so-called great alternative format. 1045 beats Skin hands down. Give the station a chance already....

Arggggggggggggg rap arggggggggggggg.

Yes, we have been unfortunately blessed with 14 rap stations playing the same garbage on our FM dial. But
A. Skin radio isn't playing those awful no-talent artists and
B. The rap/hip-hop is pretty much gone. Rarely, if ever, do they spin a track with a "fly beat" (for lack of better wordage). It's an Alternative Rock station, and so far, a better one that 1045. Not saying that can't change, but as brought up before, apparrently Radio is only hear to knock down MMR a peg or two to put Power ahead. Ah, corporrate radio.

 

[8638]

Why would you even mention Skin Radio, who the hell wants to hear Rap ghetto in-between the sets, give me a break, the dial is saturated with Rap and the Skin listener has to put up with it on a so-called great alternative format. 1045 beats Skin hands down. Give the station a chance already....

I agree with Run here. A little flea power AM station v. a 50 Kw equivalent FM? Boys and girls, I can tell ya which one I'm listening to. And WRFF, to me, sounds pretty good. I'm 47, and I have listened for several hours without wanting to change the station. Pretty good, I'd say!

 

[drog123]

Why would you even mention Skin Radio, who the hell wants to hear Rap ghetto in-between the sets, give me a break, the dial is saturated with Rap and the Skin listener has to put up with it on a so-called great alternative format. 1045 beats Skin hands down. Give the station a chance already....

I agree with Run here. A little flea power AM station v. a 50 Kw equivalent FM? Boys and girls, I can tell ya which one I'm listening to. And WRFF, to me, sounds pretty good. I'm 47, and I have listened for several hours without wanting to change the station. Pretty good, I'd say!

I agree with Don. I am 29 years old and I have hardly changed the station at all. I like it with the exception of that Chris Issak tune and Solisbury Hill.

 

[SoulCrusher]

I'm happy that Philly has something resembling a full-time Modern Rock station on the FM dial. I'm not happy for those of us outside the Philly market, who had hoped that Radio 104.5 would be a change from the status quo. Being within range of G Rock's signal, I can say that Radio 104.5 sounds very much like G Rock, only even safer and more tame. It has been highly reminiscent of Max 95.7 thus far, with maybe only an occasional song that would not have received airtime on that failed format.

Radio 104.5 doesn't go nearly as deep with the Currents as they should (they're only playing about 10-15), there's a lot of stuff that they play that's more suited to a Hot AC than an Alternative (The Fray, Lifehouse, Hinder, Nickelback, etc.), and they are extremely heavy on the soft ballads.

While it's true that they don't specifically mention their format on air, certain songs make it evident that this is supposed to be an Alternative format. So it will be judged as such. While it may have only been on for less than 3 weeks, Radio 104.5 still has a long way to go in improving their sound. Either play more new music, go deeper with the retro songs, and please ditch all of the soft rock that can be heard on every other station. We turned Radio 104.5 on in the hopes of getting away from that stuff.

Clear Channel better tinker with their format quickly, and hopefully they will be true to their word in taking advice from the listeners. If not, WYSP might just beat them to the punch by delivering the format that Philly is looking for, though it more likely than not will be more Active Rock oriented.

 

[SoulCrusher]

Radio 104.5 has a bunch of songs that no Alternative stations that I know of play (well, the ones north of the Mason-Dixon Line, at least). And I mean that in a bad way - we're talking soccer mom fluff ballads that receive regular rotation on B 101 and Ben. These songs include:

3 Doors Down - Here Without You, Be Like That
4 Non Blondes - What's Up?
Blues Traveler - Hook, Runaround
The BoDeans - Closer To Free
Evanescence - My Immortal (while I'm not a fan, the other stuff can stay, but they still play it way too much)
Fountains Of Wayne - Stacy's Mom
The Fray - All At Once
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris, Slide, etc.
Hinder - Better Than Me, Lips Of An Angel
Hoobastank - The Reason
Chris Isaak - Wicked Game
Lifehouse - First Time, Hanging By A Moment
Nickelback - Take your pick. This isn't Mullet Country.
Train - Drops Of Jupiter

Combine this with way too many ballads, and you're not giving Philadelphia a choice - you're just playing a whole lot of bland, safe-as-milk pop/rock with a couple of good Alternative tracks thrown in. There are some good things about the station - it's good to hear the likes of INXS (they play Don't Change), Bob Marley & The Wailers, The Church, etc. They also play tracks from bands such as Staind ("For You"), Linkin Park ("Faint") and Papa Roach ("Last Resort") that are considered "too heavy/edgy" for airplay on New Jersey's G Rock. But on the whole, this station could use some help in the music department - they really should ditch the songs listed above and start playing much fewer slow songs. And I'm also not a fan of the approach they're taking with giving their jocks minimal opportunity to speak - I thought the stations here at the Shore were bad!. What they're doing now will steer what I assume is their target audience away - I hope they will gain some focus and work out the kinks at Radio 104.5.

 

[raydofan]

This is how they describe themselves:

RADIO 104.5, WRFF-FM, Philadelphia’s Pop/Adult Alternative.

That may explain a little.

 

[raydofan]

Radio 104.5 has a bunch of songs that no Alternative stations that I know of play (well, the ones north of the Mason-Dixon Line, at least). And I mean that in a bad way - we're talking soccer mom fluff ballads that receive regular rotation on B 101 and Ben. These songs include:

3 Doors Down - Here Without You, Be Like That
4 Non Blondes - What's Up?
Blues Traveler - Hook, Runaround
The BoDeans - Closer To Free
Evanescence - My Immortal (while I'm not a fan, the other stuff can stay, but they still play it way too much)
Fountains Of Wayne - Stacy's Mom
The Fray - All At Once
Goo Goo Dolls - Iris, Slide, etc.
Hinder - Better Than Me, Lips Of An Angel
Hoobastank - The Reason
Chris Isaak - Wicked Game
Lifehouse - First Time, Hanging By A Moment
Nickelback - Take your pick. This isn't Mullet Country.
Train - Drops Of Jupiter

Combine this with way too many ballads, and you're not giving Philadelphia a choice - you're just playing a whole lot of bland, safe-as-milk pop/rock with a couple of good Alternative tracks thrown in. There are some good things about the station - it's good to hear the likes of INXS (they play Don't Change), Bob Marley & The Wailers, The Church, etc. They also play tracks from bands such as Staind ("For You"), Linkin Park ("Faint") and Papa Roach ("Last Resort") that are considered "too heavy/edgy" for airplay on New Jersey's G Rock. But on the whole, this station could use some help in the music department - they really should ditch the songs listed above and start playing much fewer slow songs. And I'm also not a fan of the approach they're taking with giving their jocks minimal opportunity to speak - I thought the stations here at the Shore were bad!. What they're doing now will steer what I assume is their target audience away - I hope they will gain some focus and work out the kinks at Radio 104.5.

I think it's a shame that Philly had no legacy station-like a mid 80s WHTG (NJ) or WLIR/WDRE (NY) (which I think was tried on 92.5 during the early 80s-correct me if I'm wrong) that would support older 'college rock': Smiths, XTC, APB, The Jam, Stranglers, Teardrop Explodes, etc...I think the prevailing thinking is that a format like that couldn't be supported, but my thinking is a niche station could be a good revenue generator. People I know who are fans of this era/brand of music are upper middle class, sucessful..so there are possibilities. Unfortunately, current wisdom of management dictates there is no time to take a chance and rekindle this demo's love of radio. Also key in this group: embracing the latestest technology that delivers what they want. So they may be a bit harder to reach. To my mind, the ideal format loses all th stuff listed above.

I wonder if there is some flexibility in the overnights-let a little weirdness happen...

 

[RunWithScissors]

Around the 6 oclock hour, I tuned them in, it was at the CHMall, I just caught the end of a song, "forever", I think and it sounded alot like AFI, it was the very tail end. I had my Grundig so I could not read the RDS as in my car, and they did not mention the song in that set. If it was indeed AFI they are moving in the right direction, they still do not play Oasis, which is strange, that band fits the format to a tee.

 

[Beejus]

Around the 6 oclock hour, I tuned them in, it was at the CHMall, I just caught the end of a song, "forever", I think and it sounded alot like AFI, it was the very tail end. I had my Grundig so I could not read the RDS as in my car, and they did not mention the song in that set. If it was indeed AFI they are moving in the right direction, they still do not play Oasis, which is strange, that band fits the format to a tee.

104.5 did play AFI's "Girl's Not Grey" during the 6pm hour... around 6:35ish. They also played Papa Roach's "Forever" a few songs later.

 

[carnyfeet]

I've found this station to be about as listenable as WMMR - in that, MMR will play some decent stuff for a little while, but then will inevitably resort to playing generic radio rock like Creed and Daughtry after a few songs. My usual M.O. now is to flip back and forth between RFF and MMR to see which one is the first to offend my ears with the mullet rock or the latest Clearchannel-approved artist before I flip back to the other one.

I guess if their goal is to emulate Y-100 in it's heyday, they are doing a decent job and they'll acquire plenty of loyal listeners with fond memories of that era, if they stick to it. It's just not for me, though. They're just not playing enough new stuff to outweigh the crap. However, I recently lost my iPod so I guess I'll just have to suck it up and deal with it for the time being.

Like I've said on this board again and again, it's really intensely frustrating to be a part of what they claim is the most desirable demographic and still having not one station in the area playing what I want to hear. If I wouldn't go crazy from the silence afterwards, I would rip my radio out of my dashboard and kill it on the side of I-95.

 

[Wexler]

I have to admit, yesterday when I listened the station was rocking! Higher Ground - RHCP. I must have caught it at the right time.

Now once a local human gets in there to actually program the thing and eliminate the Chris Issac, Blues Travler, Rusted Root, Bodeans, Violent Fems, Train, David Gray, New Order, Counting Crows...etc...clunkers that de-rail any sort of rocking momentum and make me want to throw my radio out of the window, this station could do something.

300+ different songs played yesterday? Is that possible? Obviously once they start selling spots that won't be the case, but that is pretty damn impressive.

If they replace the crap I listed earlier, go lighter on the Soul Asylums, Lemon Heads, Butt Hole Surfers, Cranberry's, Garbage...etc...and go deeper into the heavier Alternative this station can do some damage.

WRFF needs to own something.

I will say that when I flip to MMR all I hear is Van Halen, Guns and Roses, Def Leopard and Ozzy - and that's why I don't listen...maybe it's cause I don't drive a big rig? Who knows.

 

[robaustin]

The station isn't a real modern rocker -it's a Modern Rock leaning Hot AC. It is playing music that appeals to Gen-X'ers - a 50/50 male/female split. It is the music a Gen-Xer would recognize from their youth, and new music that would appeal to them.

I find it closer to a station like KYSR - Star 98.7 LA rather than a harder alternative station like KROQ. Star 98.7 is a little more pop,

All those middle of the road bands mentioned - Chris Isaak, Counting Crows, Train, etc... Those are the bands that keep the older end of the demo - up to about age 44. THey test well, and so they shall remain.

Don't forget - this is a Clear Channel station - well researched and programmed from music testing.

--*Rob

 

[Beejus]

Now once a local human gets in there to actually program the thing and eliminate the Chris Issac, Blues Travler, Rusted Root, Bodeans, Violent Fems, Train, David Gray, New Order, Counting Crows...etc...clunkers that de-rail any sort of rocking momentum and make me want to throw my radio out of the window, this station could do something.

Again, it depends on who they are aiming for. My sister is 26, and loves 104.5 because it's the music she grew up on DRE and Y100. I'm the same way, plus the mix of currents they have thrown in are a solid sound. A lot of people I talk to have sampled 104.5 and like what they hear so far because it's a walk back through yesteryear.

 

[RunWithScissors]

Being into Metal, Hair Metal and Hard Alternative its a bit safe, but I still enjoy it, my main station since the departure of YSP and Y-100 has been MMR. I do enjoy the Metal and Hard Rock they play on occasion but to hear Pierre and the other talkative jocks plus U(liberal)2 every 10th song is a bit too much, so its 1045 all the way now. This is the same observations I have encountered with other listeners.