Did Z100 really become Alternative in the 90s?

[jebsib]

I have heard this a couple of times in the last few years, but find it hard to believe. Can anyone verify? When? How alternative? Any pop at all?

[Adam (UTR)]

They started leaning Alternative later in '94, but it wasn't that noticeable on their year-end chart. Things changed the next year.

Here's their top 100 of 1995:
01 Betterman – Pearl Jam
02 When I Come Around – Green Day
03 Lightening Crashes – Live
04 Corduroy - Pearl Jam
05 Like The Way I Do - Melissa Etheridge
06 All Over You - Live
07 Another Night – Real McCoy
08 Hold My Hand - Hootie & The Blowfish
09 You Oughta Know – Alanis Morissette
10 Run Around – Blues Traveler
11 Carnival - Natalie Merchant
12 Plowed - Sponge
13 Kiss From A Rose – Seal
14 Till I Hear It From You - Gin Blossoms
15 Let Her Cry - Hootie & The Blowfish
16 Good - Better Than Ezra
17 She - Green Day
18 Strong Enough – Sheryl Crow
19 Self Esteem – The Offspring
20 Always – Bon Jovi
21 Only Wanna Be With You – Hootie & The Blowfish
22 Comedown – Bush
23 Roll To Me – Del Amitri
24 I Alone – Live
25 Molly – Sponge
26 Sick Of Myself - Matthew Sweet
27 Jar – Green Day
28 100% Pure Love – Crystal Waters
29 Name – Goo Goo Dolls
30 Runaway – Real McCoy
31 December – Collective Soul
32 Hand In My Pocket – Alanis Morissette
33 I’ll Be There For You – The Rembrants
34 Buddy Holly – Weezer
35 I Knew – Dionne Farris
36 Zombie – The Cranberries
37 Take A Bow – Madonna
38 Ants Marching - Dave Matthews Band
39 Lump – The Presidents of the United States of America
40 Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - U2
41 Total Eclipse of the Heart – Nicki French
42 Hurt – Nine Inch Nails
43 Live Forever – Oasis
44 Misery – Soul Asylum
45 Tomorrow – Silverchair
46 My Friends – Red Hot Chili Peppers
47 The Rhythm of the Night – Corona
48 Breakfast At Tiffany’s – Deep Blue Something
49 Can’t Stop Loving You – Van Halen
50 Gonna Get Away – The Offspring
51 Here Comes The Hotstepper – In Kamoze
52 What Would You Say – Dave Matthews Band
53 Missing – Everything But The Girl
54 Bullet With Butterfly Wings – Smashing Pumpkins
55 This Ain’t A Love Song – Bon Jovi
56 Time Bomb – Rancid
57 As I Lay Me Down – Sophie B. Hawkins
58 Wonderful – Adam Ant
59 Allison Road – Gin Blossoms
60 No More I Love You’s – Annie Lennox
61 White Lines - Duran Duran
62 Warped - Red Hot Chili Peppers
63 This Is A Call – Foo Fighters
64 In The Blood – Better Than Ezra
65 Everyting Zen - Bush
66 Pretty Penny - Stone Temple Pilots
67 The World I Know – Collective Soul
68 I Got A Girl – Tripping Daisy
69 Send Me On My Way – Rusted Root
70 Violet – Hole
71 One of Us – Joan Osbourne
72 Low – Cracker
73 On Bended Knee – Boyz II Men
74 Geek Stink Breath – Green Day
75 Time - Hootie & The Blowfish
76 Queer - Garbage
77 You Gotta Be – Des’ree
78 Smash It Up – The Offspring
79 Gangsta’s Paradise – Coolio
80 More Human Than Human – White Zombie
81 Say It Ain’t So - Weezer
82 Waterfalls – TLC
83 Down By The Water – PJ Harvey
84 Connection – Elastica
85 Get Ready For This – 2 Unlimited
86 Hook – Blues Traveler
87 Bang and Blame - R.E.M.
88 Do You Sleep – Lisa Loeb & Nine Stories
89 Natural One – Folk Implosion
90 Dreams – The Cranberries
91 I’ll Stick Around – Foo Fighters
92 Fantasy – Mariah Carey
93 Brain Stew – Green Day
94 I Kissed A Girl – Jill Sobule
95 Galaxie - Blind Melon
96 Ode To My Family – The Cranberries
97 1979 – Smashing Pumpkins
98 Glycerine – Bush
99 You’ll See – Madonna
100 I Got Id - Pearl Jam

By 1996, it was much more Pop with only a few Alternative crossovers that didn't make the Pop chart.

[jebsib]

Wow - Thank you! That's striking - It's as if by March 1995 they completely gave up on anything r&b based (with one or two exceptions like Fantasy & Gangsta's Paradise) - I wonder why? Given Z100's heritage and reputation by then as a top 40, it seems like a radical shift to go quite so alternative!

[Rurry]

I wonder why? Were their ratings bad or something?

[reidster]

Well, alternative was big on pop in the 90s too, so that could be one of the reasons. 10 years from now we are going to be asking "Did z100 really become a dance station in the 2010s".

[somelikeitwhen]

They had a few alt songs on their 1993 year end chart too.

[Rurry]

Oct 21, 2010 13:04:37 GMT -5 reidster said:

Well, alternative was big on pop in the 90s too, so that could be one of the reasons. 10 years from now we are going to be asking "Did z100 really become a dance station in the 2010s".

True, although they've been dance-leaning for a while now, possibly since even the late 90 when they had songs like One More Time on heavy rotation.

I guess Z100 just goes through weird stages.

[Slinky]

Oct 20, 2010 8:50:48 GMT -5 jebsib said:

I have heard this a couple of times in the last few years, but find it hard to believe. Can anyone verify? When? How alternative? Any pop at all?

I can absolutely verify it. The 1995 chart doesn't really do justice to how Alternative they were at the time, simply because we look back on a lot of those songs and they don't seem very Alternative. The songs by now-Hot AC artists like Natalie Merchant, Alanis Morisette, Goo Goo Dolls all started out at Alternative in the 90's. Even the Gin Blossoms were played on Alternative.

There was Pop played, when Pop songs became huge, but it kind of sounded out of place. You'd hear 5 Alternative songs in a row, and then all of a sudden, there'd be Madonna's "Take A Bow".

Their slogans and on-air sound were very "Alternative" as well. I remember the "Tune In Your Head" slogan in 94 or so and they called themselves "New York's New Rock" for a time. It wasn't until mid-96 that they went back to using "hit music" slogans again.

CHR stations in nearby markets like Trenton and Philadelphia did the same format shift as Z100. Trenton's WPST sounded a lot like Z100 in 1995, playing mostly rock, and the occasional Pop or Dance crossover (never any hip-hop though). Philadelphia's CHR Y100 went even further than Z100, playing very few Pop crossovers, save for the occasional huge one, like "I Love You Always Forever". Of course, Y100 went fully Alternative in 1997.

[jebsib]

Interesting. I know that CHR was leaning Hot-AC at that time, but the crazy "out-of-balance" playlists almost suggests that Z100 (and the others you mentioned) decided to completely abandon the "hit music" format altogether, leaving all rhythmic fare completely to the CHR/Rhythmic panel.

What brought back the balance? Macarena? Spice Girls?

[Slinky]

Oct 20, 2010 22:15:16 GMT -5 Rurry said:

I wonder why? Were their ratings bad or something?

It's a long story- LOL. In the late 80's and early 90's, top 40 was mostly pop, dance, and dancy hip-hop (think MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice). It was fairly rhythmic-leaning and really appealed to the masses. It's interesting that in 20 years we've basically come full circle, but that's a topic for another thread.

Anyway, by late 1991, the pure pop and dance product had dried up. There was a huge backlash to the dancy hip-hop artists, and hip-hop went gangsta. This presented a huge problem to CHRs- the new hip-hop was hugely popular but polarizing and not adult-friendly. Most CHRs shunned hip-hop- there were a lot of CHRs that specifically said "no rap, no hard stuff" in their slogan. CHRs abandoned the younger demographics and played artists that should have been relegated to AC (Michael Bolton, Rod Stewart, Roberta Flack). The result was that CHR totally lost its youth audience, and it failed to gain the adult audience that was being superserved by AC and Hot AC (a new format at the time).

Record numbers of CHR stations abandoned the format. The ones that remained dealt with their lowest ratings ever, including Z100. IN NYC, Hot 97 went from an also-ran dance station to a hip-hop powerhouse. Z100 went the opposite way- from a pop and dance powerhouse to basically a low-rated lite-CHR. They were one of the many CHR stations to adopt the "No rap, no hard stuff" slogan, but adults stayed at real AC and Hot AC stations like WPLJ.

So this takes us to 1993. There's a new sound that's popular with youth- grunge. It's hugely popular on MTV, but rock stations don't want to touch it. They don't want to upset their audience that has become increasingly comfortable with classic rock. So this leaves a huge opening for CHR stations that have been searching for a brand new youth sound to latch on to. Z100 does exactly that, and ratings improve.

This works for a couple of years. Z100 doesn't have the amazing market-ruling ratings they had in the 80's, but they grab the Alternative audience that really has nowhere else to turn, and do OK with it. The problem is that the grunge fad fizzles pretty quickly and Z100 limps into 1996. Even worse, K-Rock abandons its Classic Rock format in early 1996 and switches to Alternative. By mid-96, the Howard Stern-powered K-Rock is slaughtering Z100, and the entire radio industry is wondering if Z100 can ever recover.

Also occurring in early 1996, a new radio station called WKTU signs on playing dance music and immediately debuts at #1. The management of Z100 sees this and realizes that the pop and dance audience is going to KTU because they have nowhere else to turn. In mid-1996, Z100 makes the risky decision to abandon their Alternative audience and evolve back into an "all the hits" CHR. The rest is history.

[Slinky]

It's also worth noting that the idea that Z100 would play "all the hits" again seemed totally crazy in 1996. In hindsight, Z100 going back to CHR is a total no-brainer, but few people thought it would work at the time, because real mainstream CHR in major markets was basically dead.

Some people thought Z would have been better off evolving to a soft Alternative station (called Modern AC at the time). A lot predicted that going back to CHR would fail because Z100's audience no longer associated Z100 with hit music.

[Slinky]

Oct 22, 2010 13:09:55 GMT -5 jebsib said:

Interesting. I know that CHR was leaning Hot-AC at that time, but the crazy "out-of-balance" playlists almost suggests that Z100 (and the others you mentioned) decided to completely abandon the "hit music" format altogether, leaving all rhythmic fare completely to the CHR/Rhythmic panel.

That perception is entirely correct. When I was growing up in the mid-90's outside Philadelphia, I could listen to Alternative CHR (Y100 and WPST), Rhythmic CHR (Q102), or Adult CHR (WSTW and B104). There was no mainstream CHR until WPST switched back in 1996. Many big cities were like this. Some even had no CHRs at all, not even Alternative or Hot AC leaning ones.

What brought back the balance? Macarena? Spice Girls?

A number of factors. The biggest factor might have just been grunge fizzling out. People got sick of it after a few years. In NYC, the re-emergence of dance music (not just Macarena, LOL) was another huge part of it. When KTU debuted at #1, the radio industry took notice. When Z100 evolved back to mainstream pop, it was, in part, by playing La Bouche and Robert Miles. The Spice Girls and the Backstreet Boys were still a half year away.

The return of pure pop is definitely what caused CHR to take off across the country in 1997, but, in Z100's case, I don't think they would have evolved back to CHR if it hadn't been for KTU's runaway success.

(Keep in mind KTU and Z were owned by different companies at the time. The same thing would never happen today since they're now both Clear Channel properties.)

[Rurry]

Wow, this is all pretty interesting, especially that CHR seems to have come full circle with what it was in the 80s and early 90s. And I didn't realize how different CHR was in the mid-90s either. As someone who lived in the NYC area my entire life it's weird to think there was a time when Z100 wasn't associated with hit music.

It'll be interesting to see if a similar backlash against the electro/poppy stuff comes into play within the next few years and if there will be another move towards alternative/adult music. I could see it happening.

[Janhova's Witness]

Thanks for posting Slinky, that was a great read.

[jebsib]

Slinky, superb analysis! In fact, one of the best, most intelligent and informative posts I've read here in over 7 years....

(Any insight into what happened to CHR in the early 2000s - the rhythmic explosion?)

[Adam (UTR)]

Oct 23, 2010 6:25:24 GMT -5 jebsib said:

Any insight into what happened to CHR in the early 2000s - the rhythmic explosion?)

Part of it was Clear Channel setting up a number of CHR stations from 1999 into the 2000's in the midwest which were programmed to lean Rhythmic, which eventually carried over onto other stations. You also had major artists like Nelly, Eminem and 50 Cent who had huge album debuts and were constant sellers, which translated into more airplay. There were still Hot AC-leaning Pop stations at the time, but those Rhythmic-leaning ones started to drown them out.

[somelikeitwhen]

An aircheck of Z100 I have from 1994 showed they played Closer by Nine Inch Nails. Yeah, that seems pretty alternative to me. (They also played Mother by Danzig.) I think this station might have been the reason Tomorrow by Silverchair spent a single week at 40.

[atlantaboy]

^Yeah, I think a lot of Alternative songs in 1994-1996 cracked the Top 40 directly because of Z100 (and it's influence on other stations)

I think the biggest reason that Z100 (and other stations like Kiss 95.1/Charlotte and WPST/Trenton) became Alternative in '94'-95 was that a lot of markets didn't have Alternative stations yet - so there was this whole new genre of music getting high callout from younger demos with no station to play it, so a lot of the CHRs jumped on it - and since a lot of the younger listeners that loved Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Counting Crows, etc. specifically did not like hip-hop/R&B, CHRs started transititioning all the way to Alt. rock

IMO the other important factor was that by 1991-1993, the CHR chart was filled with older aging 80s artists (like Phil Collins, Michael Bolton, Sting, Rod Stewart, Bryan Adams, etc.) that weren't getting high callout with younger demos, even though they were CHR Top 5 hits, and even #1s - if CHRs wanted to attract younger listeners, they basically either had to play hip-hop/R&B or jump on the new Alternative sound (which back then included Gin Blossoms, Collective Soul, Counting Crows, Blind Melon, Soul Asylum, etc.), and again, I think most early Alt. listeners specifically did not like hip-hop, so that it didn't make sense to have a station that played both hip-hop and Alternative - a lot of markets had a Rhythmic station, an Alternative station, and a Hot AC station (with no CHR), and literally almost every song on the CHR chart was covered by one of these stations

By 1996, dance music was re-popularized, and CHRs started re-emerging, or flipping back from Alternative, specifically so younger listeners could hear pop-dance in their markets - but another big factor IMO was that Hot AC stations started playing pop/alternative tracks (like Counting Crows, Collective Soul, Goo Goo Dolls, Dave Matthews, Hootie, etc.) instead of playing Rod Stewart, Phil Collins, Bryan Adams, etc. like they were back in '94 - with Hot AC now playing big Pop/Alternative tracks, CHRs were losing listeners to Hot AC

I don't think it's true that the "well" of Alternative music started to "dry up" in '96 - I just think CHRs that leaned Alternative were losing too many listeners to new Alternative and younger-sounding Hot AC stations

I also think that CHR in the very late 80s and early 90s was setting itself up for failure - there was a lot of teen pop and pop/dance that appealed to the masses, but very few true hits that went into recurrency - most of the "hits" were very short-lived, and by 1992-1993, there were almost no recurrents for CHRs to play (people didn't want to hear Paula Abdul, Milli Vanill, Vanilla Ice, Bobby Brown, New Kids On The Block, etc. in replay) - so by the time 1993 came around, CHRs had to either base their whole station on brand new songs (which were mostly either Alternative, gangsta rap, or AC), or lean AC and play recurrents from 80s artists

[jebsib]

Man, "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio sticks out like a sore thumb among all that alternative.

[jebsib]

atlantaboy - very good points about CHR at the end of the 80s / early 90s.

This all starts to make sense: Its like a perfect storm:

I think that the Milli Vanilli scandal hit harder than I initially thought in that it instantly questioned all the pop acts that existed at the time, from Paula & NKOTB straight through to the Taylor Daynes and Debbie Gibsons of the era.

Also, CHR had depended for 5 years on hair metal and power ballads, which instantly became irrelevant when Nirvana and the Red Hot Chile Peppers breezed in. And when the Dr Dre style decimated the Hammer style (and r&b moved away from softer sounds and became Hip-Hop edged) CHR must have kinda panicked - their format had to be rebuilt.

[atlantaboy]

Oct 22, 2010 22:59:56 GMT -5 Rurry said:

As someone who lived in the NYC area my entire life it's weird to think there was a time when Z100 wasn't associated with hit music.

I think in 1993-1995 it was really unclear what "hit music" was - All these new "gangsta rap" tracks were topping the Hot 100 and peaking in the 20s and even 30s on CHR - Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Green Day, and the Chili Peppers were selling millions of CDs yet barely sending anything to CHR - literally all the teen pop/dance acts from the very late 80s/early 90s had disappeared, and most of what was left to play were Counting Crows/Gin Blossoms-type bands that were easily covered by new Hot AC stations

[somelikeitwhen]

Does anybody have any old R&R issues from this period so they could post some R&R playlists from this era?

[EvanJ]

Oct 23, 2010 6:25:24 GMT -5 jebsib said:

(Any insight into what happened to CHR in the early 2000s - the rhythmic explosion?)

wargod.arbitron.com/scripts/ndb/fmttrends2.asp (which unfortunately no longer updates) has national ratings for the radio formats. That site started calling all CHR stations either Pop CHR or Rhythmic CHR rather than just CHR in Spring 2000. At that time Pop CHR had an 8.5 rating and Rhythmic CHR had a 3.2, for a gap of 5.3. A year later in Spring 2001, Pop CHR had a 7.7 and Rhythmic CHR had a 4.6, for a gap of 3.1. The gap was down to 1.8 in Spring 2002 and 0.7 in Spring 2003. Rhythmic CHR was more popular than Pop CHR for the first time in Fall 2003, and Rhythmic CHR was ahead of Pop CHR every season from then through Winter 2006. Pop CHR led Rhythmic CHR for four of the five seasons from Spring 2006 to Spring 2007 which is the last season the website has. Rhythmic CHR was a little ahead of Pop CHR in Summer 2006.

[Walking Contradiction]

Z100 and WPST from those eras were actually the first stations I willingly listened to. When I was 10, I got into Nirvana and Green Day, and those stations were the ones that came closest to hearing the music that I wanted. At the time, I would always get put off when they played a dance song, and wonder why they thought it fit with the other stuff they played. From my memory, the Z100 playlist back then was about 75% alternative/rock, 20% dance, and the other 5% was the rare pop ballad or hip-hop crossover.

I was pretty disappointed initially when Z went back in a pop direction, but stuck with the station and grew to appreciate some of the pop stuff (though I wouldn't have admitted it to any of my classmates). Of course, I also listened to K-Rock for my alternative fix, and would get excited when Z would add an alternative song such as "Semi-Charmed Life" or "The Freshmen".

In retrospect, I can see what a trainwreck Z100 was at that time, but that era still holds some sentimental value for me. I miss that early alternative years of K-Rock as well - it only felt like a true alternative station from about 1996-97. After that, they felt the need to mix in classic rock, as well as new music that would now be largely relegated to active rock. Of course, that space is now occupied by a very rhythmic-leaning CHR. How the times have changed!

[atlantaboy]

^I still can't believe that NYC doesn't have an Alternative or an Active station, and in addition, people are saying the Triple A station is going to flip formats soon cause of low ratings

People in NYC just don't like rock I guess

[Minor Scratch]

This is one interesting thread. Awesome posts guys. I learned a lot here. Living in Canada, I wasn't in the United States in the 90s and Rick Dees countdown was all I had to know what the CHR airplay in the US sounded like during that time. I was never aware how big Alternative music was on CHR in the mid 90s. Rick Dees and Casey's Top 40 countdowns never seemed that Alternative-leaning when I listened to them in the mid-90s. Was it just Z100 and the stations in that area that were that Alternative?

[esoteric76]

Nov 29, 2010 18:25:50 GMT -5 Minor Scratch said:

Was it just Z100 and the stations in that area that were that Alternative?

Somewhere around 1996 a new station popped up, I want to say it was 105.1 (don't remember the call letters, I think it was the BUZZ or something) but it was AAA and it was AWESOME. They were playing a lot more pop-leaning alternative, moreso than Z100. I remember they were playing Paula Cole, Amanda Marshall, Sheryl Crow -- just terrific stuff. I REALLY miss that.

[atlantaboy]

Nov 29, 2010 18:25:50 GMT -5 Minor Scratch said:

Was it just Z100 and the stations in that area that were that Alternative?

I wanna say maybe there were about 10 CHRs that went completely Alternative - the only ones I remember are Z100, WPST/Trenton, and the CHR that turned into WNKS/Charlotte - later on, WDCG/Raleigh went pop/alternative (Modern AC) for a couple years - can't remember any others, but I think there were a handful more

[Walking Contradiction]

Dec 2, 2010 12:15:49 GMT -5 esoteric76 said:

Somewhere around 1996 a new station popped up, I want to say it was 105.1 (don't remember the call letters, I think it was the BUZZ or something) but it was AAA and it was AWESOME. They were playing a lot more pop-leaning alternative, moreso than Z100. I remember they were playing Paula Cole, Amanda Marshall, Sheryl Crow -- just terrific stuff. I REALLY miss that.

105.1 was indeed known as "The Buzz" for a time from 1996-97. It was more of a modern AC than a AAA, but did generally play a softer mix of modern rock. That station was generally in a pretty confused state throughout the 90's, fluctuating between Hot, Modern, and regular AC formats. It closed out the decade with a Jammin' Oldies format, which it kept until it flipped to hip-hop as Power 105.1 in 2002.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWPR-FM#History

[esoteric76]

Dec 12, 2010 16:02:56 GMT -5 Walking Contradiction said:

Dec 2, 2010 12:15:49 GMT -5 esoteric76 said:

Somewhere around 1996 a new station popped up, I want to say it was 105.1 (don't remember the call letters, I think it was the BUZZ or something) but it was AAA and it was AWESOME. They were playing a lot more pop-leaning alternative, moreso than Z100. I remember they were playing Paula Cole, Amanda Marshall, Sheryl Crow -- just terrific stuff. I REALLY miss that.

105.1 was indeed known as "The Buzz" for a time from 1996-97. It was more of a modern AC than a AAA, but did generally play a softer mix of modern rock. That station was generally in a pretty confused state throughout the 90's, fluctuating between Hot, Modern, and regular AC formats. It closed out the decade with a Jammin' Oldies format, which it kept until it flipped to hip-hop as Power 105.1 in 2002.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWPR-FM#History

Thanks for the info. That really takes me back. The Buzz was possibly my favorite station and was the only place where I could listen to music that wasn't overplayed as much as the other NY stations at that time (aside from when KTU started, which was awesome). The Buzz featured at least 3 different Amanda Marshall singles. Sigh.