Fresh Listen: KUCD (Pop 101.9) Honolulu

When KUCD (Pop 101.9) Honolulu made my list of Intriguing Stations of 2023, I remarked that the then-top-5 CHR success of “Cupid” by Fifty Fifty had perhaps put the “is K-Pop over?” discussion on hold for a while. The iHeart decision to move the station’s Asian pop format from an FM translator was also a vote of confidence in itself.

K-Pop has a much bigger calling card, now, of course, in the phenomenon of Kpop Demon Hunters and the crossover success of “Golden” by Huntr/X. “Golden” is not yet a consensus power at CHR, but I still consider it the Song of Summer 2025, because it was phenomenal in a way that differentiated it from any other uptempo hit.

K-Pop had another breakthrough moment in February when Rosé & Bruno Mars’s “APT” did become a No. 1 record. That song should have put to rest all the discussions about K-Pop’s place in the mainstream. Instead, I’ve had one broadcaster tell me they believe that the song’s sound and its mass appeal make it inherently not K-Pop. But spending an hour with Pop 101.9 is to understand just how much the genre has broadened.

In the sample hour below, I heard three songs with a Miami bass feel, including one meant to recall “My Boo” by Ghost Town DJs. I heard two with an ’80s electro sound reminiscent of “Planet Rock.” One of the station’s newest adds is Bibi’s neo-lounge “Scott and Zelda.”  The Asian pop songs in play at CHR this week — Katseye’s “Gabriela,” Blackpink’s “Jump,” and Jackson Wang’s “Made Me a Man” — are a varied bunch as well.

It’s when Pop 101.9 throws in a pre-2020 gold title like Blackpink’s “Kill This Love” that you most hear the difference. Those songs are trappier, harsher than the recent hits, a reminder of a time when programmers were reckoning with the streaming strength and fanbase of the genre and asking “yes, but what do we do with it?” 

That said, Top 40 PDs were having the “what now?” discussion about “Mo Bamba” by Sheck Wes, too. That song wasn’t “Anxiety” or “Luther,” the hits with which Hip-Hop reclaimed its footing at Top 40 this summer. There was also a lot of trappy harshness in the mainstream pop hits, which is why even at this particularly gold-based moment for a product-starved format, you don’t hear a lot of “Gold” by Kiiara or other late-’10s titles now either.

I’m always waiting for a “W-A-Beatles-C” moment when a station rides a musical phenomenon. We saw some of that two summers ago with Taylor Swift during the “Eras” tour. Pop 101.9 hasn’t yet become “K-U-C-Demon Hunters,” but you will hear the movie’s hits 2-3x in most hours. KUCD did host one of the screenings when the movie played theaters in August as well, and also spotlighted the soundtrack on a “Labor Day Weekend Takedown” (as opposed to “takeover,” a play on one of the movie’s song titles).

There’s another interesting piece of terminology on Pop 101.9 as well. New songs by established artists are staged — before and after — as “comeback songs,” implying just a return to the charts, e.g., Justin Bieber or Doja Cat, rather than a career resurgence of the sort where Lady Gaga is the best recent example.

Here’s Pop 101.9 at 3 p.m. with Becky Mits:

• Saja Boys, “Your Idol”
• Jimin, “Who”
• Ateez, “Say My Name” (2019)
• Stray Kids, “Ceremony”
• Blackpink, “Kill This Love” (2019)
• Katseye, “Gabriela”
• Aespa, “Supernova” — hard neo-electro with a “Planet Rock” throwback feel
• Jin, “Don’t Say You Love Me”
• Rosé & Bruno Mars, “APT”
• Huntr/X, “Golden” — frontsold as a listener request
• Got 7, “Just Right” (2017)
• Bibi, “Scott and Zelda”
• Jung Kook & Jack Harlow, “3D” — 2023 title sounded really good now and made me wonder what would have happened if it had come out after “APT”
• Seventeen, “I Don’t Wanna Cry” (2017)
• Twice, “This Is For”
• Illit, “Magnetic”
• Katseye, “Game Boy” — another song with the “comeback” frontsell/backsell
• Red Velvet, “Bad Boy” (2018)
• Le Ssarafim, “Antifragile”

“Golden” has been Billboard’s Hot 100 leader for six weeks. At this writing, it’s No. 6 in CHR airplay, still trying to push past many stations’ longstanding policy with all teen pop of “play them, but don’t power them.”  As stations ponder that, it’s worth noting that KMVQ (Now 99.7) San Francisco, the station with the most spins to date on “Golden,” has continued to rebound from an atypically soft June during the time that song was in power. I’m also recently on the record in favor of any song that might help restore the mother/daughter coalition.

It’s also interesting to note that all five of Pop 101.9’s powers — three from Demon Hunters plus Blackpink and Katseye — have some footprint at CHR. The Sunday night iHeart KPOP show means a significant showing for Asian pop in the lower reaches of the Top 40 radio charts, especially given the lack of titles being worked to CHR. 

At this product-starved moment, any programmer hangups about giving K-Pop more than one slot on a CHR playlist aren’t doing the format any favors. Regardless of whether there’s a bandwagon to ride, there are records that the format needs. As with Hip-Hop or Country crossovers, it would be hard to have too many of them if we were also to make sure that we had enough of everything else.