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It's sad that New York radio cannot honor the dead superstars in rock.

G

Gunsmoke

Banned
Now that Chris Cornell passed, was there even one station in NYC that played his music all day and night. Here in Philadelphia, WRFF did a nice tribute and I'm sure in other markets where there is an Active or Alternative station the same was done. It's sad when the largest city in the country does not have one Alternative or Active format that programs that brand of music or would honor these late, great superstars. I am sure if a Rap, Hip Hop, Pop or ethnic superstar passed, there would be at least seven or eight signals paying tribute. If Q104 did anything, I would be surprised, but it would probably be one cut every few hours.
 
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Gunsmoke said:
Now that Chris Cornell passed, was there even one station in NYC that played his music all day and night. Here in Philadelphia, WRFF did a nice tribute and I'm sure in other markets where there is an Active or Alternative station the same was done. It's sad when the largest city in the country does not have one Alternative or Active format that programs that brand of music or would honor these late, great superstars. I am sure if a Rap, Hip Hop, Pop or ethnic superstar passed, there would be at least seven or eight signals paying tribute. If Q104 did anything, I would be surprised, but it would probably be one cut every few hours.
Click to expand...

New York listeners in the money demos are hard-wired for rhythmic and listen to little else.

Of course, grunge and rap were the two phenomena that drove many baby boomers away from current rock and urban music at the end of the '80s -- me included. I was watching the news with my 95-year-old dad when Cornell's death was reported and he asked me who the hell Cornell was. I honestly couldn't answer him. Soundgarden is a band I've heard of, but I never listened to their music, at least not while knowing who was performing.
 
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CTListener said:
Soundgarden is a band I've heard of, but I never listened to their music, at least not while knowing who was performing.
Click to expand...

That's a good point. Was grunge music ever played on New York radio when it was current? Not to my knowledge. I remember reading of a conversation between Carol Miller and a DJ in Seattle asking to have grunge explained, and if it was actually popular in the city where it originated. You say grunge drove boomers away, but my recollection was the lack of regular airplay began an alienation of Gen X away from traditional radio. At least in NYC. Maybe someone has a different memory.
 
In NYC proper, as it turns out Q104.3 played several tracks associated with Chris Cornell on Thursday 5/18/2017.
Via the "Playlist-Recently Played" feature on their website:

6:33 AM Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden
8:17 AM Hunger Strike - Temple Of The Dog

Then as part of the Noon Workforce Blocks segment:

12:39 PM Black Hole Sun - Soundgardsen
12:44 PM Fell On Black Days - Soundgarden
12:49 PM Say Hello To Heaven - Temple Of The Dog

Then late in the evening:

11:02 PM Like A Stone - Audioslave
11:07 PM I Am The Highway - Audioslave
11:21 PM Black Hole Sun - Soundgarden

In the believe-it-or-not category, WCBS-FM played Soundgarden's "Black Hole Sun" at 3:53 AM on Thursday morning 5/18/17 (shortly after the AP story had been posted).

No further plays appeared there since.

On suburban stations:

WDHA Dover NJ has played quite a bit of Soundgarden/Temple Of The Dog/Audioslave/Chris Cornell songs.
WXPK 107.1 The Peak Briarcliff Manor-White Plains was fairly extensive, including a rare re-working of its weekday 10@10 day + night feature to acknowledge Cornell's music.
WWSK Smithtown (94.3 The Shark Long Island) also was heavily into it throughout the day including a 2 hour block from 5 - 7 PM.

There are others I couldn't check since their playlists were unavailable such as WRKI "I95" Danbury and WPDH Poughkeepsie.

WBAB Babylon did not play any associated tracks.
 
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TheBigA said:
That's a good point. Was grunge music ever played on New York radio when it was current? Not to my knowledge. I remember reading of a conversation between Carol Miller and a DJ in Seattle asking to have grunge explained, and if it was actually popular in the city where it originated. You say grunge drove boomers away, but my recollection was the lack of regular airplay began an alienation of Gen X away from traditional radio. At least in NYC. Maybe someone has a different memory.
Click to expand...

Q104.3 was the city's hard rock station from December 1993 to July 1996. K-Rock transitioned to alternative rock in January 1996.
Z100 was in their modern rock-leaning CHR phase from (roughly) Spring 1993 to Fall 1996.

Suburban stations that were in (or close to) that format at the time included
WXPS (The Express) / WRGX 107.1 (Today's Rock: X-107) in Briarcliff Manor-White Plains until December 1996
and 92.7 WDRE Garden City (Long Island) until 1996.

WDHA Dover NJ has been a fairly consistent rock station that likely would have included Soundgarden/Temple Of The Dog/Audioslave/Chris Cornell songs as part of their format at that time.
 
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pjc1961 said:
Q104.3 was the city's hard rock station from December 1993 to July 1996. K-Rock transitioned to alternative rock in January 1996.
Z100 was in their modern rock-leaning CHR phase from (roughly) Spring 1993 to Fall 1996.
Click to expand...

I understand that, but the height of grunge was before that. "Badmotorfinger" was 1991. WNEW-FM didn't play it. "Blake Hole Sun" was 1994, too early for K Rock.

Did Z100 play any Soundgarden? I don't think so.

WDHA is a great station, but they aren't in NYC. I'm sure the NJ college stations also played grunge.
 
Gunsmoke said:
Now that Chris Cornell passed, was there even one station in NYC that played his music all day and night. Here in Philadelphia, WRFF did a nice tribute and I'm sure in other markets where there is an Active or Alternative station the same was done. It's sad when the largest city in the country does not have one Alternative or Active format that programs that brand of music or would honor these late, great superstars. I am sure if a Rap, Hip Hop, Pop or ethnic superstar passed, there would be at least seven or eight signals paying tribute. If Q104 did anything, I would be surprised, but it would probably be one cut every few hours.
Click to expand...

What is an "ethnic superstar?" And what, exactly, is the problem?

If the format isn't in a city, so be it. There are legitimate business reasons, personal tastes aside. Fans have ample opportunities to find what they want even when there is not adequate support in a given area for a given format.
 
CTListener said:
New York listeners in the money demos are hard-wired for rhythmic and listen to little else.

Of course, grunge and rap were the two phenomena that drove many baby boomers away from current rock and urban music at the end of the '80s -- me included. I was watching the news with my 95-year-old dad when Cornell's death was reported and he asked me who the hell Cornell was. I honestly couldn't answer him. Soundgarden is a band I've heard of, but I never listened to their music, at least not while knowing who was performing.
Click to expand...

Not all boomers were driven away by grunge, but many I know were driven away by the emphasis on rap on alternative rock radio (for whatever reason). Grunge, they could understand. Rap? Not so much. Soundgarden, ironically, was one of the most 'classic rock' sounding grunge bands, with the vocal sound and heavy guitar riffs.

I don't know about the East Coast tastes, but here on the West Coast, grunge was popular, as it was in Seattle (obviously). Even people who weren't into the actual grunge scene liked most of the music, and our local mainstream rock station (KISW) played a mix of grunge and more mainstream sounding acts throughout the 90's, tweaking the format here and there, but they generally seemed to mix it up back then, as they do now.
 
MarcB said:
Like J. Lo, Pitbull, Daddy Yankee, Enrique Iglesias, etc.
Click to expand...

Those would be Hispanic superstars. The definition of "Hispanic" is not really an ethnic classification as much as a linguistic heritage one: Hispanics do not share a 100% common ethnic background as there are many cultures and even racial subsets to the overall term.

There are also African American superstars, who also would be included as "ethnic" superstars if we wanted to classify everything into subsets.
 
Relevant to this discussion, when Johnny Cash died in 2003. how much memorial airplay did he get in NYC?

Given it was at a time when there was no country radio station in the city?
 
TheBigA said:
Relevant to this discussion, when Johnny Cash died in 2003. how much memorial airplay did he get in NYC?

Given it was at a time when there was no country radio station in the city?
Click to expand...

He wasn't getting mainstream country airplay at all by then. His highly acclaimed later recordings were only played in Americana formats, mostly noncomms. I don't think WWYZ Hartford did anything.
 
CTListener said:
New York listeners in the money demos are hard-wired for rhythmic and listen to little else.

Of course, grunge and rap were the two phenomena that drove many baby boomers away from current rock and urban music at the end of the '80s -- me included. I was watching the news with my 95-year-old dad when Cornell's death was reported and he asked me who the hell Cornell was. I honestly couldn't answer him. Soundgarden is a band I've heard of, but I never listened to their music, at least not while knowing who was performing.
Click to expand...

Grunge and New Jack Swing was a gift to country music and radio. By that time, pop CHR music was no longer fun, and the lyrics were weak. Many programmers and listeners jumped ship because Country was filling that void. I did like Black Hole Sun, and Like A stone, but for the most part that was contribution to main stream radio. The media is cruel and was waiting to see what the passing of this artist was. Sadly, that was the focus his bands or music catalog.
 
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