Radio Radio

We happened to be present this morning at both a death and a birth. About an hour ago, Minnesota Public Radio pulled the plug on WCAL… And like trying to change alarm clocks without having to reset, they quickly plugged in KCMP, the much ballyhooed new “eclectic music” station they are calling “The Current.” Most people don’t pay that much attention to this sort of thing, but there is a decorum to be observed, and people in the industry attach great importance to the moment of switch-over. Normally, after a hostile commercial take-over, a station will switch formats without calling any attention to itself.

We remember eight years ago when an audibly surprised and upset Shawn Stewart said goodbye with virtually no warning the day Cargill sold REV-105. We don’t remember what song was played at the top of the last hour, but it was some godawful hair-metal song played on a continuous loop for at least 24 hours, while presumably REV-105 staffers were escorted from the building.

There were other reasons to remember that infamous day—it was the same day that the Village Voice announced it had bought City Pages and the Twin Cities Reader, and would be liquidating the latter. For those of us in the media biz, it sure felt like the day the national corporate monopolies moved into the Twin Cities and started crashing around our quaint little china shop. But of course, death often leads to birth—both processes being almost too painful to endure.

Old fans of REV-105 will surely expect “The Current” to reprise what they remember, in the sepia-toned twilight of their memories, about that celebrated radio station. And in the intervening years, we find we’ve become jaded about radio. An interesting inversion has occured in the last fifteen years. Commercial radio has so successfully been colonized by the bean-counters, focus-groupers, and poll-takers, that we expect any radio station that wants to compete will have its programming dictated by its format. That is, if your market needs a classic rock station, according to market research, then you will have certain, very limited choices about what kinds of music you can play. Your DJs, it is understood, aren’t a lot more invested in the business than your custodians–their jobs being limited to moving stuff and pushing buttons. Think?! You’re not paid to think, you’re paid to DO!

When news escaped that MPR was planning some sort of popular-variety music station, we were skeptical. Then, when they began to announce the pending switch-over to “eclectic radio,” we thought they were having trouble deciding what the station would be. In the mouths of radio professionals, “eclectic” is a word with much the same effect as a barber saying “Oops.” Surely MPR was not having trouble figuring this new animal out?

And then we realized what we most loved about REV-105. That station could get away with programming virtually anything, from Luna to KISS, Jimmie Rodgers to Joy Division. The reason they could do it successfully was because of the station’s ineffable personality. It reflected a group identity that synched and felt natural. The station owners left the programming in the hands of a bunch of passionate kids with great taste in music, and the results now live in immortal legend. (The Big Boss just stepped in to add, soto voce: “Yeah, but what was REV-105’s listenership? Microscopic!”) We like to think the same thing happens here at The Rake. There are no sui generis Rake stories, nothing really off limits. The only thing that dictates what we publish is whether it piques our collective, er, eclectic interests.

So far, we have to say the new station’s first-day playlist looks completely insane on paper. Opening song by Atmosphere. Last set: Luna, Son Volt, Hank Williams, Matt Pond. But then we had the funny realiziation that it compares favorably to our own iTunes library, set to shuffle.

Yeah, but can an idiosyncratic mix of unimpeachably cool music succeed as a real radio station with a real audience? We hope for their sake and ours that it can–but idiosyncracy plus mass media normally equals that saddest of all propositions: a critically-acclaimed money loser. It’s neat to think we’re not the only crazy people swimming against the currents of modern commercial media.