Alternative Rock Radio...Not Dead Yet

One of the pleasures of the internet age is being able to listen to radio stations from across North America. It reminds me of when I was a kid growing up with a transistor radio (yeah I'm THAT old) at night discovering that I could tune into stations from hundreds of miles away like WKBW from Buffalo, CKLW from Windsor, Ont and WLS from Chicago.

Then AM radio converted to a 24 hour talkathon and really awesome FM stations started to spring up playing adventurous groundbreaking music with programs hosted by knowlegable, hip announcers who cared about the music they played. The glory days of "free form radio". Then the consultants came in with their focus groups and tightened formats and the AOR format was born, later to be fossilized into classic rot radio.

Then just when we seemed about to drown in a sea of Toto, Styx and Journey, punk came in to shake things up and within a couple of years new stations arose to play adventurous music hosted by knowlegable, hip announcers who cared about music. KROQ, WLIR, CFNY, WHFS. Then the evil minions of Clear Channel came in with their focus groups and tightened formats. Woman listeners were written off and "modern rock" radio was born, later to devolve to the 24 hour soundtrack for fratboys: "active rock radio".

But despite deregulation, the ubiquity of chain ownership, the competition of mp3 players and satellite radio, some cool commercial stations managed to survive and thrive. Some label themselves alternative stations and others AAA (another format the evil minions of Clear Channel have tried to turn nto mindless pablum) but they have one thing in common a dedication to expose innovative artists such as Vampire Weekend, Radiohead, TV on the Radio, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Santogold, Flaming Lips and Franz Ferdinand to the general public.

Good commercial stations are still out there. Most are streaming audio worldwide. The mission of this blog is to expose them and give them some support. While I love the WXPNs WFUVs WTMDs and WMVYs of this world they have their limitations (after a couple of hours I get a hankering for some Tool or System of A Down or Rage Against the Machine) While I love the unpredictability of college radio, the attitude and elitism you sometimes get there is grating. We need stations like -- first radio station endorsement coming up -- WWCD in Columbus Ohio, currently fighting the good fight against a homogonized Clear Channel station even as we speak.
So for CD101 -- and other stations like this, this blog's for you.