First Listen: Boom Rock

Even as I was writing about the Intriguing Stations of 2023, I was already penciling in a First Listen for 2024. Now I’ve got two.

Boom Radio is a UK counterpart to stations like Me-TV FM and KDRI (The Drive) Tucson, Ariz., that play an older/deeper Classic Hits mix, although Boom also plays appropriate new music as well. Its launch was followed by the standards-era Boom Light. Earlier this year, it announced the Feb. 14 rollout of Boom Rock, although in keeping with UK (and Canada) protocol, that station is on-air testing now, allowing us to take a First Listen.

As for the column that’s on the way, that was just announced. Boom Radio has found its lane in part because of the modernization of AC BBC Radio 2, paralleling the evolution of Mainstream AC here. At the same time, the UK’s Greatest Hits Radio has grown, due in part to the hiring of Radio 2’s Ken Bruce, but also just because the network is bringing Classic Hits on FM to many markets, including London, for the first time.

As for that other First Listen, the BBC announced on Feb. 7 that it was planning four more national DAB services, including a version of CHR Radio 1 that played more ’00s/’10s gold and an older-targeted companion to Radio 2. That quickly spurred protests from commercial broadcasters, including Boom. 

Like other European services, Boom’s new channel is an interesting glimpse in how “rock” is viewed there. The first promo I heard on Boom Rock echoed the station’s previous announcement that it would go deeper into albums, but also play “hard rock, psychedelic and prog, plus folk, new wave and West Coast favorites.” Other sweepers promise “everything rock” and “rock’s roots to stadium fillers.”

Here’s Boom Rock beginning around 12:15 on February 7:

• Peter Gabriel, “No Self Control”— from the 1980 Peter Gabriel album
• Marillion, “This Town” — their “Kayleigh” is a mainstay on Classic Hits/AC in the UK
• Kingsmen, “Louie Louie”
• April Wine, “Just Between You and Me”
• Electric Light Orchestra, “Strange Magic”
• Duran Duran, “Black Moonlight”
• Juice Newton, “Love’s Been a Little Bit Hard on Me” — it certainly rocked by Country standards in 1982; plus, it was modeled on her “Queen of Hearts,” which was a Dave Edmunds cover
• Status Quo, “Wild Side of Life” — Juice was followed by a classic country cover
• Eagle-Eye Cherry, “Save Tonight”
• Peter Frampton, “All I Want to Be Is by Your Side” — from Frampton Comes Alive
• Nashville Teens, “Tobacco Road”
• Dire Straits, “Twisting by the Pool”
• John Miles, “Slow Down”
• Michael Jackson, “Beat It”
• Jeff Beck, “Love Is Blue” — rock, because it’s Beck, but also featuring a vocal chorus that could have been on any other cover of an easy listening hit
• George Harrison, “Beware of Darkness” — from All Things Must Pass
• Jackson Browne, “Black and White” — from 1986’s Lives in the Balance
• Bill Haley & Comets, “See You Later, Alligator”
• Velvet Underground, “Venus in Furs”
• Heart, “Alone”
• T. Rex, “Life’s a Gas”
• KT Tunstall, “Suddenly I See”
• Rolling Stones, “Start Me Up”
• David Bowie, “Who Can I Be Now?”
• New Radicals, “You Get What You Give”
• Led Zeppelin, “D’yer Mak’er”
• U2, “Two Heats Beat as One”
• Deep Purple, “Woman From Tokyo”
• Poison, “Every Rose Has Its Thorn”
• Bryan Ferry, “Tokyo Joe”
• Bob Dylan, “Masters of War”