No Alternative

Radio programmers have officially given up on rock and roll in New York City.

WNYL-FM, the alternative-rock station in New York that went on the air in 2017 on the 92.3-mhz frequency, signed off this past month and became WINS-FM, a simulcast of  WINS-AM, which switched from Top 40 to news back in 1965. 

The format flip allows WINS to reach more listeners on the stronger FM band, but it also makes it clear that rock and roll radio has no place in New York.  All of the great FM rock stations in the Big Apple are gone, with only a couple of rock stations with spotty reception in the northern New Jersey and Westchester County suburbs.   In the city, rock is down to WAXQ-FM, a classic rock station that is putting way too many eighties hair bands in its playlists.

Rock, of course, has been in trouble for years, many because its demographic matches that of the folks who voted for Donald Trump.  (Many political reporters have made note of Trump's heavy use of rock songs at his rallies, even as Joe Biden has hosted Olivia Rodrigo at the White House to encourage her to spread the word about COVID vaccines to young people; I would note, in addition, that he didn't send for Greta Van Fleet to publicize the vaccines.  Yeah, yeah, I know - Greta Van Fleet? Who's she?)   Rock became associated with aging white people who never changed their tastes even as tastes in popular music kept changing, which only allowed rock to calcify rather than remain open to new bands and new innovations.  It thus became so irrelevant that, if not for the rock category at the Grammy Awards, rockers wouldn't win any Grammys at all these days.   

It makes sense that, whenever YouTube guys like Rick Beato comment on whether or not rock can come back, they look like they're going through shell shock.

And although black people invented rock and roll, and despite the presence of predominantly black bands like the Alabama Shakes and TV On the Radio, as well as Gary Clark, Jr., people of color these days would rather not bother with guitar-driven blues-based numbers you can't dance to.  Among female acts, it's no accident that Taylor Swift is more pop than rock - so much, in fact, that she named one of her albums 1989 not just because she was born in that year but because 1989 was a year dominated by pop divas like herself and a year in which only one rock album - Dr. Feelgood by Mötley Crüe (one of those cassette-era bands that reaffirmed black people's decision to by and large disown rock and roll and create rap) - topped the Billboard album chart.   

And so, even an alternative-rock station in the country's biggest metropolitan area couldn't save rock and roll radio.  Or rock and roll itself.  (What, you thought they were going to flip a hip-hop FM station to simulcast WINS?)

Aah, I've long since given up on terrestrial radio, which is dying faster than rock and roll is.  Sirius XM satellite radio's rock channels have all the songs you love.  The Spectrum channel promotes new bands and plays a few classic rock songs, and the classic-rock channels Classic Vinyl and Classic Rewind are there for all of your favorite tunes.  And the Deep Tracks channels plays rock songs that may have never aired on terrestrial radio at all.   Sirius XM isn't cheap but in today's declining and falling terrestrial-radio environment, it's worth it.  In fact, it's essential.

Let, then, New York rock radio pass.  It's a pity that this song has lost all of its relevance and meaning.  

Sat!

I finally have satellite radio in my car!

I got Sirius XM for my Volkswagen as a Christmas present.  (Never mind who it was from; that's a family secret.)  

It's been a long time coming.  If you want satellite radio - or "sat," as I call it - Sirius XM is your only recourse since Sirius and XM merged in 2008, but if you want plain old radio the way it used to be, then satellite radio is your only recourse, period.  Terrestrial radio is mostly just a bunch of stations that play the same old boring pop songs and rap records of recent vintage, as older music from farther back has all but disappeared from regular radio and new music that I actually want to listen to is virtually nowhere to be found on regular radio at all.  I still wonder how long Alt 92.3, New York's alternative-rock station, is going to last.  Public music stations still offer new music I like to hear, but I couldn't help but notice how the public music station in my area, WFUV-FM, which broadcasts from Fordham University in the Bronx, is actually getting quite lame.  I think I've had my fill of Iron & Wine for years to come.  

On Sirius XM, the choices are practically endless.  Now I can hear 1950s music, 1960s music, 1970s music - all of which get their own individual radio channels - and I can hear more of that same music on other channels!  And with none of the commercial interruptions that have become more prevalent on terrestrial commercial radio and have virtually ruined old-school radio for me.  Sirius XM has rock channels that play basic classic rock, but there's even a channel that plays obscure songs from classic albums and from obscure albums by famous bands - bet you never heard anything from Jethro Tull's 1978 album Heavy Horses on terrestrial radio before! - as well as music from bands even I have never heard of!  (Family, alas, don't get airplay on sat, but who cares, I have all their albums.)  There's a new-rock channel, a channel playing new and classic rock together, a blues channel,  a jazz channel, a show-tunes channel, two classical channels, and all sorts of themed music channels, such as one for  Elvis, another for the Beatles, another for the Grateful Dead . . . there's even one for Tom Petty.  And there are many more.  My only regret is that I can only program ten channels maximum on my receiver.

News and talk?  Yeah, there is some of that, along with a channel for Howard Stern, but I'm not interested much in any of that - and I'm completely disinterested in Howard Stern in particular.  My old fellow Drew alum Karen Hunter, who once ridiculed former House Speaker Paul Ryan for still listening to Led Zeppelin in 2012, has a Sirius XM show, but I'll be damned if I know what channel it's on.  Anyway, I don't plan to listen to Karen's show.

I'm too busy listening to the classic rock channels and '70s on 7.

It's amazing how there are songs you used to hear on terrestrial radio that you only hear on sat now.  A couple of weeks ago I had '70s on 7 playing, and "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" by the Bee Gees came on.  "How Can You Mend a Broken Heart" was the Bee Gees' first American number-one hit, having topped the charts for virtually the entire month of August 1971, yet you'd be hard-pressed to find a terrestrial radio station that plays it today.  Heck, I've even noticed how FM classic rock stations seem to be leaning more toward classic rock performers that only began their recording careers after Jimmy Carter left the White House.  Imagine that: rock from the genre's 1960s/1970s "classic" period, which is supposed to stand the test of time, has seen its time up on terrestrial radio.

Am I still listening to WFUV?  Yeah, about that . . ..  I love WFUV's Saturday afternoon "Mixed Bag" show, where Don McGee plays an eclectic mix of folk, soul, rock and country music.  One Saturday after I got satellite radio, I turned off Sirius XM and tuned in to "Mixed Bag" . . . only to find that it was pre-empted by a Fordham basketball game.  The show was still on WFUV's Internet page, but WFUV is obliged to air Fordham varsity sports on the radio station.

I turned it off and went back to sat.

I don't want to abandon terrestrial music radio entirely.  But there's too much good stuff on Sirius XM to listen to now.  And despite WFUV's eclectic mix, it's hard to settle for variety from one station when sat gives you even more variety over a hundred-odd channels.