Rock radio, a followup

[womzilla]

Less than a month after the radio focus group study I reported about back on April 1, I started listening to a new White Plains station, WXPK, "The Peak 107.1". It bills itself as "world class rock", and its format does seem to be somewhat different from other traditional rock radio formats. It's probably closest to what AOR was like when I first started listening to AOR in the late 1970s--a good, somewhat but not aggressively eclectic assortment of rock from the 1960s until the present.

It's a huge improvement over "classic rock". In the last fifteen minutes, I've heard "Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes", "Shelter from the Storm", and "Invisible Sun", all of which are played only rarely on "classic rock" stations. Ah, REM's "Stand" just began.
It's not perfect; New Wave is definitely less represented than I would like. The station itself is very mechanical--there are no DJs, no local news except for traffic reports, no promotions. And it's still hits-oriented--I really doubt I'll ever hear, say, Dylans "Blind Willie McTell" or even "Idiot Wind", let alone The Dead Kennedys or Mojo Nixon. In short, this isn't the station I would design if I were designing a radio station from scratch. But it's something I can listen to for long stretches of time and hear good familiar-but-not-threadbare music interspersed with some new material.

Ah, Cars, "Just What I Needed" just came on. Pure New Wave satisfaction. And I've been listening for weeks without hearing any of the Unholy Trinity--REO Speedwagon, .38 Special, and Journey. So I'm content.

Comments

[dougo.livejournal.com]

I thought everyone in the New York/New Jersey area just listened to WFMU all the time.

[womzilla.livejournal.com]

Now they're playing "Another Tricky Day", from The Who's 1980 album Face Dances. That's definitely outside the realm of "the same five Who songs over and over again". (I'd rather hear some of the off-hit tracks from Who Are You, such as "905", which I think I've never heard on the radio, but still.)

[bibliotrope.livejournal.com]

They play Springsteen and the Who. And they have online streaming. Must give this a try -- probably at work where I have a broadband connection. (Here at home I have the computer next to the stereo, which helps.) Thanks for the info!

(And the station I listen to here is now playing "Jungleland." Life is good.)