Flashback

This weekend the local independant radio station, 103.9 the Edge, had a 90's flashback weekend.

It was quite accurate: I didn't hear any At the Drive-In, Superchunk, Babes in Toyland, Silkworm, Dismemberment Plan, Les Savy Fav, Lush, etc.

That being said, I, of course, didn't expect to hear such bands... but the 90's flashback weekend was still less than exciting. They merely increased the frequency of the 90's songs that still get played.

A few back they did a random play weekend where, well, interstitial to the songs with which they normally saturate the airwaves they took randomized selections from a much, much broader playlist... even if, again, most of these songs can (or at least could) be found elsewhere on the radio. Still, it was nice hearing some weird Prince... even if I sat through most of Come On Feel The Noise before I realized that I was on the wrong station. It isn't that I would've enjoyed the song more were it being played on the Edge... it's just that I had less home that another station would be playing anything worthwhile. Plus I figured the song would end about 3 minutes before it did.

When I first started listening again to the radio regularly - when my Creative broke - I noted that The Edge had gotten a lot better. I still couldn't listen to it for more than an hour because I can barely make it through one song by the Killers, two is too much.

I am now fully sick of listening to the radio (after what, a couple months?) I don't need to hear (Sublime, RHCP, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, the Killers, Green Day, Foo Fighters, Audioslave) daily... much less multiple times per day. The scary thing is this is still the best rock radio station in town.

101.5 The Zone culls from a similar list except that they're more likely to play Linkin Park or Staind too. They also carry Stern which means there's just no music (or anything else worthwhile) in the morning.

93.3 KDKB is the rock station. Not as hard (overall) as KUPD and not as alternative (overall) as The Zone or The Edge and more classic than any of them. This station has been around forever and, IIRC, hasn't changed significantly.

100.7 KSLX has also been around for quite some time... which makes sense for a station that plays the classic rock. Their current artist of the month is Crosby, Stills and Nash.

97.9 KUPD is the hard rock station... playing... I don't know, MachineHead and Sevendust and Ra and Audioslave.

Those are ordered by likelihood I'll find a song I want to listen to... though recently when scanning I've been going from some point near the bottom of the list and moving up using the theory that since (a) it is most likely no station will be playing anything I particularly want to hear and (b) the best thing which could be played by KUPD would be better than the average on The Edge I don't have to worry about what could be playing elsewhere.

Also I listen to KBAQ about as much as the others combined. Or at least the non-Edge ones combined.