Active vs. Alt Rock

 Rawk Radio   

I’ve been writing a radio post here and there but it seems like I have been pondering the radio a lot, so here I go again. You have been warned.

In the battle of radio formats, I’ve always had some interest in Active Rock.  Everyone needs a little Metallica in their lives, right? These days that the line between the Active Rock and Alt Rock formats becomes a little blurry. So let’s do my fun little comparisons. I am comparing SD’s active rock station KIOZ with KBZT and KDGE, which is Dallas’ alt rock station.  (spreadsheets here. )

On all playlists:

Deftones Hole In The Earth
Tool The Pot
Red Hot Chili Peppers Tell Me Baby
Rise Against Ready To Fall
Jet Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

I have to say that I was surprised that the Jet was on KIOZ’s playlist.

Shared by KIOZ and KBZT:
Audioslave Original Fire

I’d say that KDGE will eventually play this one.

Shared by KIOZ and KDGE:
Breaking Benjamin The Diary of Jane
Papa Roach To Be Loved
Stone Sour Through Glass

Oh yeah, all those bands that I am glad that KBZT doesn’t play. KIOZ and KDGE also share some artists you would never hear on KBZT – such as Korn. I’m sure KDGE also plays Godsmack and Hinder and all of those god awful bands as well. Actually I know they do because when I was in Dallas that’s when I would flip the station. (Lushy, I know you like Godsmack, I don’t hold it against you. They are just not for me.)

I guess it didn’t really surprise me that KIOZ and KDGE had more similarities to their playlists since they are both CC stations. Dallas doesn’t have an active rock station, so it makes sense that their playlist leans more towards the active rock.

KBZT is unique in the sense that their playlist is all over the place. They want some of the harder rock but at the same time they want to give some indie love. They play power pop but then they have the reggae thing going. I think some people may think this is a lack of identity but I see it as them working outside of the box to find a good mix that people want to listen to.

That being said, a couple of things on KBZT’s playlist are quite horrifying to me. I heard Plain White T’s the other day. ACK! It was actually during Travis’ show and I had to call him to freak out. He was not so happy that was on his list to play. And that +44 song? Horrible. Poor Mark Hoppus and Travis Barker. Tom Delonge bails on them and does his wanna be U2 thing and actually makes a record you can listen to and then Mark and Travis make one of the crappiest singles I’ve heard in awhile. Tom has scoreboard on them.

So yeah, this is how the radio flipping goes for me. KBZT, then KIOZ, then KPRI then XTRA. It’s rare that I get to XTRA these days since one of the other stations are bound to play something good.  Lately my debate only rages between 8-10 on Sundays when it is Pyles “Local 94/9” vs. Scott Riggs “Inside Track”. I know I have praised the “Inside Track” in the past and I stand by it as a consistently good radio program. It’s too bad that most of the stuff on the “Inside Track” never makes it into regular rotation.

Wow, this post ended up somewhere I didn’t expect. I think that is enough rambling about the radio for this week. Carry on.

Holding Steady

 Rawk Radio   

Ratings are out and I can’t say that I am surprised. KBZT held steady while XTRA went down again. Since XTRA left the CC umbrella, they’ve only beaten KBZT during one rating period. (Attribute that to curiosity about the change over and that explains the spike.) The gap between the ratings is widening, though you have to wonder where the share that XTRA lost is going since KBZT didn’t pick up.  I don’t think I’m allowed to post the actual numbers, but you can find them here. 

It’ll be interesting to see if any changes are made at XTRA in response to the ratings. If I talk to Garett, I’m sure he’ll tell me that they aren’t going to do anything differently. I don’t know if that’s a great approach either.  I’m trying to get him on the line and I should probably leave him a vm, but I tend to ramble on vm and don’t want to subject him to the torture. 

Now on to the real dilemmas...what to eat for dinner.....hmmm…

The Homogeneity of Alt Rock Radio

 Rawk Radio   

I had some time to kill so I did another comparison of last week’s playlists (spreadsheets in all their glory are here). In addition to XTRA (SD), KBZT (SD), and KROQ (LA), I also added in KNRK (PDX) and KNDD (Seattle.) Let’s take a look at the intersects.

All five stations are have these songs in their Top 30:
The Killers When You Were Young
Red Hot Chili Peppers Tell Me Baby
Jet Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

All stations but KROQ have these in their Top 30:
Death Cab For Cutie I Will Follow You Into The Dark
Beck Nausea

(Surprising to me that KROQ isn’t playing DCFC, but I’d say that is because this single is kinda dark.)

All stations but KNRK have these in their Top 30:
AFI Miss Murder
Wolfmother Woman

All stations but XTRA have these in their Top 30:
Muse Knights of Cydonia

(Music ADD for the XTRA listeners probably is a factor here.)

Songs in Top 30 shared by XTRA and KNRK:
Keane Is It Any Wonder?
Shiny Toy Guns Le Disco
Teddybears Cobrastyle

Songs in Top 30 shared by KBZT and KNRK:
The Raconteurs Level
Band of Horses The Funeral
Pete Yorn For Us
The Strokes You Only Live Once
Audioslave Original Fire

(Band of Horses and Pete Yorn are on KBZT’s recommended this month. Most likely, these will drop out of the rotation once the month is over. )

You’re getting the picture here, right? Everyone plays what everyone else plays. I mean, the only three songs that I thought didn’t conform to the standard alt rock radio fare were KNRK playing The Decemberists, Guster and Fischerspooner but they lose points for playing Blue October.

I think the one exception to the rule is KDLE (Indie 103.1). They don’t publish their playlists in the same forum so I had to do some work to get their top 30. (Behold the glory of Yes. You can look up anything that has been played in the last 24 hours, plus they compile the Top 10 and Top 100 songs.)

Now, out of their Top 15, here are the songs that none of the other stations in our comparison are playing:

Silversun Pickups Little Lover’s So Polite
Deadboy & The Elephantmen Stop, I’m Already Dead
Razorlight In The Morning
Butch Walker & The Let’s-Go-Out-Tonites Hot Girls In Good Moods
Peaches Boys Wanna Be Her
Sonic Youth Incinerate

That’s more like it. But again, none of this stuff is earth shattering. And I’m sure some of these songs will end up on the other stations eventually. I think my point in all of this is that the radio industry has to play it safe. I mean, how much do you listen to the radio? I mostly listen to Garett and Midori and of course, Travis. But otherwise, meh. It’s not like I am listening to hear new music.

All right, this is enough on this topic for now. The ratings come out today, so I’ll have another radio related post once I look at that.

The Other Side of the Story

 Rawk Radio   

"There’s always two sides to a story and somewhere in between lies the truth.”

I got another reply to my previous posts about the seemingly never ending radio battle in our town. This one was very different from the first one, even though it was from someone else at XTRA. He gave me his side to the story, which was interesting as he has worked at XTRA for a long time, even before CC took over.  He assures me that things are really changing at XTRA. I want to believe that and for his sake, I really hope that it does. But what really struck me was the contrast between his response and the first one I received. It wasn’t antagonistic and did not personally attack me or my opinions.

Yes, I have a public blog and I sometimes write about topics that could be a catalyst for debate. I should expect that some people will have a different opinion than I do. Cool, if you have a different opinion, go write about it on your own blog or whatever forum you use to vent your opinions. This is my forum. I don’t want my blog to be hijacked by someone whose intention is start crap or who wants to pick on me for whatever reason.

I am a blogger, but I am a person, too. A person who isn’t always as thick skinned as she should be. I would love to be able to shrug criticism off but that’s not who I am. (I go to therapy for this shit, I promise I am working on it!)

So yeah. I will continue to do what I do here. I will write about music and my personal life and whatever else. And I will do it passionately because there’s no doing things half-assed in my book. And if you want to keep reading this, more power to you.  If you think I’m a crock of shit, then that is your opinion and take it elsewhere. End of story.

For The Record

 Rawk Radio   

Hm. So my previous posts about the news at XTRA prompted a lengthy response from someone at XTRA. Interesting, right? I don’t think those posts were controversial and they definitely weren’t meant to stir up any debate about which is the better station. But this person at XTRA took it upon himself to write me a long rebuttal.

For the record, I grew up listening to XTRA. I listened in the station’s glory days and stopped only when they were bought by evil CC and fired Halloran (not necessarily in that order). Then when CC bought the station that Halloran ended up at, I was completely disheartened and stopped listening to FM radio all together. Extreme, you say? Not even. In those days, you were better off listening to the inane rambling of sports freaks then to listen to the crap they were calling alt rock.

So fast forward to 2002. Halloran came back to SD at 92.1 (RIP) and then in November KBZT in its current form was started. I wasn’t listening constantly from the get go, but by February of 2003, I was listening on a daily basis. Yeah, their playlist wasn’t the greatest at first, but it was still better than the crap at XTRA. Truth be told, the competion from KBZT made XTRA a better station. Hooray! Better radio for all of us. But the reason why I am so fiercely loyal to KBZT has nothing to do with their playlist. Like I said, at this point, they pretty much play the same stuff. The people at KBZT make the difference to me. There is no empty rhetoric at the station. Garett really cares about listener opinions. I know because he has heard plenty of mine and we have had some lengthy debates (good and bad) about what works and doesn’t.

Yeah, people get into radio because they love music. But radio is also a business. And when a station like XTRA loses the amount of revenue they could be earning because there is another station with the same format (who for the most part does better in the ratings), the claws come out. I never have aired any dirty laundry about some of the things I have seen XTRA do to KBZT. And I have seen plenty of uncool things done by XTRA. But I have never wanted to start a debate here or anywhere else. To me there is no debate. Listen to what you want to but don’t be an asshole to the people who dare to be on the other side of your proverbial fence.

Let’s face it, I’m not your average radio listener. I pay attention to what goes on in the industry. I make it a point to listen to the local alt rock station when I am travelling. I’m not some hack that is spouting off about something I know nothing about.  So that’s why this email from the guy at XTRA bugged me. He told me things that I already knew and then insulted me by telling me that “the guys” at KBZT have “sold me”. What? Sold me on what? That they can be nice people and still succeed in a cutthroat business? Puh-lease.

So this morning, I got the background on him and the consultant that was hired at XTRA. And it all makes sense now. All of this just reinforces why I support KBZT so vehemently.  Oh, and if anyone from XTRA happens to be reading this today, kindly get off my blog and find something better to do with your time.

P.S. I will not tolerate any a$$hatery in comments. Anything coming close to any sort of attack on me or KBZT will get your comment removed and your IP banned. 

Playlist Comparison

 Rawk Radio   

Because I am a geek and was kind of curious plus I want to see if things change once the aforementioned consultant starts at the other station, I did a completely unscientific evaluation of the stations’ playlists. (easily found on the interweb at Radio and Records)

So...some background. These are the playlists the week ending 8/28. I threw recurrents out of the mix because I wanted to really compare the “new” music they are playing.

Comparing KROQ and XTRA’s list:

9 overlaps (same artist/song)
6 artist overlaps (same artist/different song)
4 unique KROQ (not at XTRA)
7 unique XTRA (not at KROQ)

So out of 30, half of the list is basically the same.

Comparing KROQ and KBZT’s list:

6 overlaps (same artist/song)
4 artist overlaps (same artist/different song)
6 unique KROQ (not played at KBZT)
9 unique KBZT (not played on KROQ)

So out of 30, only a third of KBZT’s list is the same as KROQ.

Now here’s the most interesting part to me. Let’s compare KBZT and XTRA straight up.

17 overlaps (same artist/song)
9 unique KBZT (not played on XTRA)
6 unique XTRA (not played on KBZT, but 3 overlap KROQ’s list)

The intersection shows that KBZT and XTRA play over half of the same songs. The songs that are different are very telling. Of the 9 unique at KBZT, none of these are played at KROQ. But of the 6 unique at XTRA, 3 of those are played at KROQ.

The numbers don’t lie. KBZT and XTRA basically play the same music, with some variation for their demographic.  (The three unique on XTRA were Keane, P.O.D. and Matchbook Romance. Totally playing to XTRA’s demographic.)

So why am I down with KBZT instead of XTRA? Because of the staff. The KBZT guys really love what they do and aren’t dialing it in every day. Plus, they aren’t out to get XTRA, they just want to do their thing. I don’t care if you like XTRA as opposed to KBZT. I do care that XTRA tries to come off as the little guy, the independent one and they aren’t. It’ll be interesting to see how it all shakes out.

P.S. Here are the playlists in a spreadsheet, I also added KITS (San Francisco) and KNRK (PDX) to the spreadsheet, just for further comparison. 

Independent Radio My A$$

 Rawk Radio   

We all know that in the local radio wars, I side completely with a certain camp. So it kills me to hear the other station’s claim of being independent and non-corporate. So what does the “local independent” radio station do? Hire a “consultant” that most recently worked at KROQ, only the most corporate alt rock radio station ever.  I don’t care if he has history of working at that station in its glory days, he’s just going to perpetuate the KROQ south mentality. That’s just what SD needs. Not.

(full blurb as reported on all access if you rawk on.)