KROQ top 50 1980

tho i don't like much of the current crop of alternative radio hits, the station that the kaplan guy is trying to build would likely be a significant improvement on what it has/had been. the alt adult contemporary model of programming that now predominates in the format has honestly been tragic, possibly even damaging to the legacy of the alternative classics it (over)plays

It's easy to see why they decided to switch to something new. Unfortunately they strung listeners along for years with half measures (a little Sublime/Offspring here, a little Muse there, a little Imagine Dragons and Marshmello for modern taste) so now no one is satisfied with consolidating toward any one subset of their potential playlist.

I truly would be interested if some ILXor would be able to tell me something rte: the appeal of Kevin and Bean. It was for many years the #1 drive time show in the second biggest radio market in the US…but I wanna know if its any different from any drive time show in the rest of the country. I have listened to Howard Stern steadily for 30 years, but…I really have no understanding of the appeal of drive time radio other than his show…I suppose it's like being a Led Zeppelin super fan but being ignorant of Bad Company and Grand Funk and every other hard rock act all the way down to Shinedown or some shit…I listened to Opie and Anthony once and simply could not believe that anyone found this entertaining…

also, there are clearly some acts on the above list that any ILXor knows very well…Billie, Killers, 21 Pilots, Tame Impala, the 1975, and a few others;…but I do not have a handle on many of the others…which is to say, what is an alternative radio format presently trying to achieve and/or reflect, apart from selling ad time? what is the aesthetic? does the demographic mentioned by the GM in the piece listen to whatever this alternative music is supposed to connote? my impression is that hip-hop dominates the desired demographic…

I was never an active Kevin & Bean listener, but there was a period in the early 2000s when I would hear their show regularly (as part of my job), and their appeal was pretty clear to me. They were great on the radio -- the personalities, humor, etc.

i probably know way too much about this radio stuff than i should. probably not as much as morrisp but KROQ was really that important to me growing up and admired what they did in those early years. one of my dreams was programming a big radio station but i was naive and didn't understand the money and politics behind all of it.

i used to listen to Kevin and Bean up until i moved to San Francisco in the summer of 1995. they came on board 01/01/1990. there was just a chemistry there that worked, they played off together so well. Howard Stern was on KLSX, a classic rock station at the time. i couldn't get into Howard as every time i tuned in he was always trying to get girls to take off their clothing. the real elephant in the room for Kevin and Bean was Mark and Brian, they owned the mornings at that time. KROQ had better music than KLOS and they could do tie in with the wennie roast or acoustic Christmas. plus Nirvana.

i moved back in 2003 but really when i put on KROQ it was all about Submine, Red Hot Chill Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins and the Offspring. i only liked one of those acts so i had moved on.

somewhere along the line iheartradio saw an opening and copied what KROQ was doing all those years. they are not playing Post Malone and took away everything that KROQ was. now they don't know what to do and they are throwing things at the wall to see what sticks. it seems like it's not working and the other alt radio station has stolen everything from KROQ including all their listeners.

Great post, Bee

How often does KROQ still play '80s music? When I was growing up listening in the mid-90s the "retro" stuff was Oingo Boingo, New Order, the Cure, etc. They could draw a pretty clear line back from the KROQ origin story to the new music they were playing at the time. It was also easy for them not to swamp the new music they were playing - more like occasional reminders.

Now there's more retro music to choose from and more difference in the sound between the retro music and the new stuff. It's a hell of a lot tougher now for them to draw from a 30 year back catalog while staying relevant with new music, satisfying the longtime listeners, and having a coherent point of view.

I think we would all agree that KROQ shouldn't be an alternative oldies station. They could have pivoted toward, say, the Phoenix aesthetic but that doesn't mix well with Red Hot Chili Peppers. If you insist on playing Under the Bridge every day then that limits your choices for new music.

I am listening to every song on the above list by artists with whom I am unfamiliar to try to draw some conclusions as to what "alternative" as a mass market radio format comprised of new music, not the classic RHCP/Sublime/Foo iteration, in 2020 and, fuck, like 10 years prior, could amount to, what kind of aesthetic unifies it…if anyone else has some ideas as to what this could be, I would be interested in hearing…

there's also this, in which Mike Kaplan from the Variety piece seems to be dubious that Bille E and Lana del rey has a place on alt radio in NYC, which is hilsrious…

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/18/arts/music/rock-radio.html

Looks like earlier this morning, KROQ played Billie > Smells Like Teen Spirit > Lana (Sublime cover) > RHCP > Daft Punk.

Feels schizophrenic to me, but maybe not to today’s KROQ listener.

(Alt 98.7’s playlist looks pretty similar; maybe a touch more appealing. Recent run (as of 6:57am): Billie > Pumpkins > Fitz & the Tantrums > Daft Punk. They played “Hey Ya!” earlier in the hour.)

DJ Shadow, didn't expect that.

Overall the amount of repetition is pretty mind numbing though. Daft Punk, Foster the People, Rezz & Grabbitz (who?), No Doubt, DJ Shadow, White Stripes, Muse, and Weezer each played twice within a 6 hour period, Fitz & The Tantrums (who?), Linkin Park, Panic at the Disco, the Killers, and Grouplove three times, 21 Pilots five times.

that's a horrible playlist, they need to play new music and not all these retreads. they should be playing stuff like Perfume Genius, Car Seat Headrest, The 1975... it seems so obvious to me, only playing Billie is not going to cut it.

Lana (Sublime cover)

this reminds me that i believe the influx of hit covers on alt radio in the past few years to be partly attributable to the format's turn toward the oldies/adult contemporary programming philosophy (see also weezer and meg myers scoring big hits at the format with pretty straightforward readings of "africa" and "running up that hill" respectively)

Checking back in on the KROQ & Alt 98.7’s playlists are the end of the day, I see that KROQ also has “Hey Ya!” in rotation. Both stations are playing old Third Eye Blind songs, which is somewhat unexpected.

Alt’s playlist, which looked slightly better this morning (if only for playing a more recent Billie Eilish track) isn’t looking so hot at night. Lotta Offspring.

...though they are playing the Bloodhound Gang right now, which is a thumb’s-up in my book.

another characteristic of 'alt ac' stations, or at least the one in my city, is their eagerness to play hits from the mainstream/uncool/'pop' phases of a (former) alternative act's run. like, most of the all-american rejects tunes they'll play are specifically the ones that alternative radio barely touched back when they came out

Billboard’s Hot Rock Songs chart has been rebranded Hot Rock & Alternative Songs as of this week.@twentyonepilots’ "Level of Concern" was the final #1. @Powfu's "Death Bed" is #1 on the 1st issue of the new chart.

— chart data (@chartdata) June 9, 2020

Is there still an Alternative chart?

yes, the standard airplay chart for that format is still being published

honestly 'hot rock songs' is(/was) just one of the many useless genre charts that have the same methodology as the hot 100 (since 2012) and are thus entirely beholden to the arbitrary decisions that folks at billboard make regarding what songs fit in what genre -- for example, the weeknd's "blinding lights" is perplexingly categorized by billboard staff as an r&b song

obviously, alternative hits were being included on this rock chart in the past as it conventionally went without saying that 'alternative' music is rock music. breaking out 'alternative' in the chart's new title is evidently an admission that, well, it turns out that a decent subset of what's now considered 'alternative' music is not rock. the powfu song that's now #1 was not on the chart until this week -- readers surely would have howled at the suggestion that it's 'rock' -- even tho it's being played primarily at a putatively 'rock' format.

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/kroq-stryker-leaves-ted-kevin-klein-1234992395/?cx_testId=49&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=2#cxrecs_s

Ted Stryker Departs KROQ’s ‘Stryker & Klein’ Morning Show, a Year After Taking Over the ‘Kevin & Bean’ Slot

https://variety.com/2021/music/news/kroq-kat-corbett-exits-locals-only-kevin-bean-1235034057/?cx_testId=48&cx_testVariant=cx_1&cx_artPos=0#cxrecs_s

As KROQ DJ Kat Corbett Exits, She Reflects on Two Decades at the Station and the Struggles Facing Alternative Radio

Michael Schneider
Tue, August 3, 2021, 8:14 PM

Longtime KROQ DJ Kat Corbett is the latest voice to exit the iconic L.A. alternative radio station — and although she’s not ready to reveal her next stop just yet, she hints to Variety that several possibilities are on the horizon.

“I am talking to some folks that I can’t say just yet,” said Corbett, who also continues to host a daily show on SiriusXM’s Lithium channel. “I think the audio sound space is so amazing right now. Podcasting, fiction podcasting, this stuff is blowing my mind. How I would love to put some of my stories in that arena.” Corbett also hopes to release her debut novel before the end of the year: “They’re rough drafts but I wrote two books during COVID. I was like, what else am I gonna do?”

Corbett had most recently served as a weekend and fill-in DJ for KROQ, in addition to her signature, weekly show “Locals Only,” featuring unsigned and up-and-coming L.A. bands. From 2005 to 2020, Corbett was KROQ’s midday DJ, following the famed “Kevin & Bean Show.”

But “Kevin & Bean” ended its run at the end of 2019, following the departure of Gene “Bean” Baxter. Co-host Kevin Ryder continued until March 2020, when KROQ fired him and co-hosts Allie Mc Kay and Jensen Karp over the phone, in the middle of a pandemic.

More recently, Ted Stryker, co-host of the current morning show, “Stryker & Klein,” also departed the station. The loss of KROQ’s signature stars, coupled with a dramatic shift in the station’s music mix over the past year, has led to several pieces — including one in Variety — dissecting the station’s current choices, ratings plummet and its future.

Corbett, however, had been pondering an exit at KROQ for some time, even prior to the recent departures and changes. She had actually planned to leave, with another show lined up, last year until the COVID-19 pandemic changed everything.

“I was ready to go then because, frankly, I reached the top of my game, and I never thought I’d be somewhere for 20 years — like that’s crazy, let alone KROQ,” said Corbett, pointing to the decision to leave the midday gig. “I’m somebody who really likes to work, I like being creative, and again it’s like, what else was there for me to do? I was never one of those people where I was, ‘I’m going to retire at KROQ.’ That’s not a thing. You grow out of the demo. I knew that there would always be a time. It was definitely happening right before COVID. And then, obviously, everything fell apart and so I already had a home so it was kind of like, [why not ride it out] while I was still there.”

What KROQ now faces is bittersweet, Corbett said, and it’s not just KROQ struggling to maintain relevancy.

“Right now I think alternative radio in general, and not just KROQ, I’m talking across the board, every single outlet is in a state of they don’t know what the hell is going on,” she said. “I think they’re deluding themselves if they think the kids are coming to radio. Kids don’t know what radio is, and they don’t care. And so now you’re alienating your audience by getting rid of all music. Also there’s this big thing, and again across the board in all alternative, where they’re, frankly, pushing hip-hop and pop as alternative, because those two genres, that’s where the money’s at. But the genre is just demolished. I don’t know how to fix it, but it’s just not its own thing anymore.”

Corbett added that she’s not knocking the idea of mixing or evolving genres on alternative radio. She began her career at another legendary modern rock station, Boston’s WFNX, and remembers when outlets like that would mix Public Enemy, Run-D.M.C., De La Soul and Prince with music by the Clash or Dinosaur Jr. The problem now: There’s very little new rock to mix in the other stuff.

“Who’s the next Green Day, who’s the next Nirvana or Rage Against the Machine, where’s that?” she said. “I think rock is in a hard place right now. And the lack of that to mix in, like, current rock is really the problem.”

Of course, the demo that grew up on alternative rock is also the demo still listening to radio, and it’s the struggle of maintaining that core audience via gold-based records — yet attempting to evolve the sound to stay fresh and bring in a new generation — that has put the format in such crisis.

“A lot of times people get mad and they yell and go, ‘KROQ sucks’ or ‘I haven’t listened in years,’ and the reality is, it’s because you’ve gotten older,” Corbett said. “We’re not programming to you, we’re programming to 18-to-34. You’ve literally outgrown the demo, so of course it’s not going to resonate with you. It’s not that the place sucks, it’s just not your thing anymore. Frankly, it’s like I’ve outgrown it. I have other desires and passions. But for all of the time that I’ve been there and the family that I’ve made and the experiences I’ve had, it’s been an incredible place to be.”

Corbett first joined KROQ in the early 2000s from crosstown rival KLYY “Y-107,” a small radio station that attempted to take on Goliath KROQ, but eventually flipped formats to Spanish adult contemporary in 1999.

“Everybody was like, ‘There’s no way you’re getting hired at KROQ, especially not after you worked at Y-107,’” Corbett recalled. “So I hounded [then-program director] Kevin Weatherly until he finally gave me an audition. And the audition was the worst. I hadn’t even seen the studio, and everybody was like, ‘Don’t worry, KROQ, they’re so broke, the studio’s like an old college radio station, you’ll be fine.’ I get in there and they had just gone digital. Which I had never used before. So I got a five-minute lesson from the board op at ‘Loveline’ on how to use Audio Vault.

“I was like, are you kidding me? Is this really how I’m going to try to get a job here? By going on air at KROQ with a system I’ve never seen before? It was an absolute nightmare. I actually cried on the way home after my overnight shift. But you know, thankfully, they heard something.” Corbett began working various shifts until eventually replacing Tami Heide in middays.

And now, although most of her former KROQ colleagues have already left the building, Corbett said she has fond memories of her two decades at the station, including breaking artists like Local Natives, Silversun Pickups and Fitz and the Tantrums on “Locals Only,” and working with a staff she described as “absolute mad geniuses.”

“It was the ‘Island of Misfit Toys,’” she said. “You often hear that phrase about when baseball is working, how it’s just magic. It’s like music. It’s very much like that in radio and we had all known each other for so long. You didn’t have to think about anything, you knew people were gonna get the job done. It was a handoff, like in the middle of chaos, we made it all work. It was a beautiful thing, and it was really exciting and fun and we laughed so much. But little by little, you start losing pieces of the band, and then it doesn’t have that feel anymore. That’s just a natural progression, especially if you’re together for such a long time.”

i know i find this KROQ fascinating and just post these strange happenings. i'm a Southern California kid who grew upon KROQ so i document some things here in ILM.

Really great post, Bee. What does she really mean when she says "current rock is the problem"? From the 'alternative' perspective, isn't there plenty of new product flowing? Or is that 'indie'?

I was in LA recently and always try to listen to KROQ when I'm there out of nostalgia and curiosity. It's a more incoherent listening experience than ever, with mostly golden oldies and a smattering of new rock(ish) music. Angst might be the one common thematic thread, with the exception of wannabe good-vibes stuff like Sublime and RHCP. Glass Animals' "Heat Waves" is a nice track - is it alternative rock? Even if you call it alternative rock, does it really make sense when played in between Yellowcard and "When I Come Around"?

Alt 98.7 is eating their lunch because they play classic KROQ music. https://alt987fm.iheart.com/music/recently-played/

working warehouse jobs through the whole second half of the 90's in LA was just KROQ all day long

The San Francisco Bay Area's last remaining alternative rock station was unceremoniously turned into the following yesterday:

“Hi. I’m Dave FM. I live in the Bay Area. Totally Random Radio is what I do.”

https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/music/why-is-105-3-fm-suddenly-playing-guns-n-roses-and-prince

Totally Random means playing Duran Duran, MC Hammer, The Killers, and Journey in succession. How cool.

Radio sucks.

5. the b-52's - give me back my man 0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl_EEpRfrkk

everyone watch this video. it takes 4 minutes.

only one poster was correct on this thread:

I don't think I was aware of "Give Me Back My Man" even being a single or making any kind of a splash on its lonesome. Such a great song, though.

― The Golan & Globus Action Lafftacular! (Old Lunch), Monday, June 30, 2014 1:26 PM (seven years ago)

all kidding aside, what a great year for music (and singles), it's just overwhelming

i feel like devo is going through a low point in terms of reputation (? i could be wrong.) not so much that people diss them, more that they just aren't mentioned much these days. and looking at the initial KROQ list, 'whip it' was #1 that year! but that + girl u want (which has always been more my speed) combine for only 1 votes here

a poll from 7 years ago, of course. and yet even since then i feel (i feel -- very subjective, again) their relevancy has declined a bit

Rumor has it that "Give Me Back My Man" was inspired by a woman who saw her dude fall from a boat and watched him get eaten by a shark.

Not sure if it's true or not but I want to believe.

i have also heard that, so rumor does have that

good job skip

“Rock music is part of what we do, it’s part of alternative, but it’s not the only part of alternative. We’re not just looking to play four white dudes in a band. Our audience is as diverse as ever and our playlist needs to be too. Whether it’s Billie Eilish or Lana Del Rey or rappers making alternative tracks such as 24kGoldn and Dominic Fike, we’re bringing together what millennials and Gen Z fans want. There are really no boundaries when you think about music today. We’re not a singular focus where we get so pigeon-holed and lack diverse options. We don’t just stand for one thing. It’s a lifestyle and an attitude.”

ThisIsMyShockedFace.gif

Interesting stuff, thanks for the link morrisp