Radio H E L L

I have the radio on here this morning, which is something I have not been doing for quite some time. I am in radio crisis. I cannot find anything to listen to that fits my demographic. I spent almost all of my radio time here on 99x, since I moved here. They are alternative rock. For years, they have ruled the market here, and were actually one of the most influential alt rock stations in the US of A, during the 90's. Their format has become stale. They mostly play angry-young-white-teenager-bands anymore, which is repetitive as hell. I liked it when it was just Linkin Park. Now they all sound alike. Besides, I don't fit that type, since I'm not angry any more. They are struggling to retain listeners. All of their listeners have gotten real jobs now, and don't have time for such foolishness.

My second choice is 96Rock. Oldies. I like oldies. However, this is a ClearChannel-owned station, which means they have a playlist that will fit on a 512kb MP3 player. You can listen to every song they ever play in one day. You'll know all the words. It'll stir up some old memory. Just like the extensive market research they did suggests. The main memory you'll have is "boy, I remember this group, and they had a lot of great songs, I wish I could hear some of them." This station ClearlySucks.

The new player here is 97FM, the River. I'll explain that name in a minute. Their demographic skews a little older than 96Rock, except more pop-and-top-40-ish. If you didn't know the words to all the songs on 96Rock, I guarantee that you will on the River. You may drive down the road, singing along, and waving a lighter over your head, setting the head liner on fire. A stray Frisbee may strike you in the head. You can listen to their entire rotation in a trip across Atlanta, which is not really fair to say, since sometimes you can read all of Gone With The Wind in a trip across Atlanta.

The River got the idea for their name from 92.9, daveFM. Yes, dave. FM. 92.9 used to be an oldies rock station, legendary. They genuinely played a good mix, had a big playlist, and thus they had to go. CBS radio bought them. The name is supposed to go along with their tag line, Rock Without Rules. dave would be a way of breaking the rules, instead of calling it z93 Rockin A', or something like that. They don't even capitalize dave in print, to keep with that whole what-a-bunch-of-rebels-we-are thing. Really. What a bunch of sociopaths, disregarding grammar rules like that. Those bastards keep coming in through the exit doors. They ought to be Arrested. The station plays 70's-'06's stuff, but only really cool stuff. No Ozzie here. You will hear a little Led Zeppelin or Kinks. To prove how thoroughly modern cool they are, they play Black Horse and Cherry Tree at least every hour, and Ben Harper at least twice a day. I can't stand them. I refuse to have someone define my cool for me.