Fresh Listen: KCSN (The SoCal Sound) Los Angeles

Even before Olivia Rodrigo’s heavily publicized “artist takeover” hour on KCSN/KSBR (The SoCal Sound) Los Angeles on Monday, June 24, during which she announced the all-female Daisy Chain Festival and crashed the station website, there was renewed discussion of where she belonged in the Alternative radio universe. 

Alternative radio had briefly tried to play Rodrigo’s “Brutal” during the format’s much-maligned early-’20s moment of pop crossover. Now, Rodrigo had signaled her intentions again by multiply namechecking the Cure on You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love, once on a song called “The Cure,” and featuring the Cure’s Robert Smith.

One early review of Pretty Sad had focused specifically on whether Cure fans would like the album. Veteran PD Tim “Rayne” Rainey had messaged me to ask, “If Haley Williams sang ‘The Cure’ instead of Olivia Rodrigo, would Alternative radio play it?” (Before Rodrigo’s KCSN appearance, Alternative KYSR [Alt 98.7] Los Angeles had given the song a handful of spins.)

Alternative radio hasn’t quite figured out where the Cure itself fits at the format these days. Triple-A radio, on the other hand, has enthusiastically embraced first-generation Alternative acts. Now, following Rodrigo’s appearance, Pretty Sad is KCSN’s album of the week. Also, WFUV New York is playing the Smith duet, “What’s Wrong With Me,” while WFPK Louisville is playing “The Cure.”

Some Triple-A stations have been very friendly to reverse crossovers. Taylor Swift’s Bon Iver duet “Exile” made the format’s Top 100 of 2020; some stations supported her song with the National, “Coney Island,” the following year. At KINK Portland, both “Déjà Vu” and “Driver’s License” are among the top 10 songs of 2021 on a station that has historically gone a lot further into the pop world, including the Elton John/Dua Lipa duet, “Cold Heart.”

My big question of recent years has been the inverse of should rock radio play Rodrigo. I’ve been waiting for some of the female singer-songwriter acts that have dominated the format in recent years to send songs that were just a little more crossover-friendly to CHR and Hot AC. During Chappel Roan’s big summer of 2024, it was easy to imagine what that might sound like. Now, I listen to each new Mitski or Caroline Rose song waiting to hear “the one.”

In her hour on KCSN, Rodrigo played both future stage-mates Roan and Mitski, along with the Breeders, Sarah McLachlan, Stevie Nicks & Don Henley, Doechii, Garbage, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Katseye, and Suzanne Vega. Many of Rodrigo’s picks were ethereal; they were radio songs only in the sense that TikTok and DSPs have made anything a potential radio song. The best radio song I (re)discovered was a day later with MD/middayer Julie Slater, Tianna Esperanza’s “Buy You a New Attitude,” which just missed charting three years ago.  

Rodrigo’s visit only reinforces Triple-A’s status as “where the action is,” at a moment when a steady supply of new music and the label/radio relationship are evanescing at every current-driven music format besides Country. It was a good time for a Fresh Listen to the SoCal Sound, and not only during Rodrigo’s hour.

Under PD Mark “Mookie” Kaczor, there’s a strong early-’00s indie feel on KCSN that goes beyond the current overall “classic alt” feel of the format overall, with more depth from both major and forgotten acts of the era. In 2002, I put four cuts from the Soundtrack of Our Lives in my iTunes. On Monday night, KCSN played “21^st Century Rip-Off,” and I thought, “I really liked that album,” and checked my phone to see what else I had loaded at the time.

When I heard morning host Nic Harcourt back on Monday night to do his “Nic at 6” feature, he remarked how Radiohead’s “Karma Police” was nearly 30 years old and recalled seeing the band live in an outdoor show in Boston. Harcourt declared that he was the biggest Radiohead fan at KCSN, no matter what Slater might say. 

The next day Slater played Radiohead’s “Daydreaming,” talked about hanging out with the band’s Ed O’Brien in support of his recent solo project, and directed listeners to the station’s YouTube page for video. Radiohead will also be making an “appearance” on the station’s upcoming July 4 fantasy concert along with Tom Petty and Fleetwood Mac. (“Five stages, zero parking hassle,” declares the promo.) 

KCSN’s :00 ID positioner is “community amplified.” It also ended one of its brief stopsets by getting “back to the music faster” — an echo of another Alternative radio experiment of the early ’20s, but an easier claim for a non-comm to back up. 

Here’s the SoCal Sound just before 6 p.m., Monday, June 22:

• Prince, “Manic Monday”
• Sweet, “Fox on the Run”
• Matthew Sweet, “We’re the Same”
• Police, “King of Pain”
• Bob Dylan, “Subterranean Homesick Blues”
• Jesse Welles, “Won’t You Come Out Tonight”
• Cake, “The Distance”
• Spoon, “No Bullets Spent”
• Wishy, “Lovesick”
• Radiohead, “Karma Police”
• Lightning Seeds, “Pure”
• Tianna Esperanza, “Buy You a New Attitude”
• Olivia Rodrigo & Robert Smith, “What’s Wrong With Me”
• Mike Campbell & Dirty Knobs, “No Regrets”
• Nena, “99 Luftballons” — ends with the live crowd singalong
• Robyn Hitchcock, “How to Feel Alright”
• Simple Minds, “Don’t You (Forget About Me)”
• Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, “All You Do Is Talk”

Here’s the station on Tuesday, June 23, just before noon with Slater:

• Bravery, “Honest Mistake”
• Dolly Parton, “Jolene”
• Elvis Costello, “Accidents Will Happen”
• Counting Crows, “Spaceman in Tulsa”
• Olivia Rodrigo, “Maggots for Brains” — the first of two from the station’s album-of-the-week feature, “88.5 Album Dive.”
• Olivia Rodrigo, “u + me = <3”
• 10,000 Maniacs, “Candy Everybody Wants”
• Jesse Welles, “Won’t You Come Out Tonight”
• The National, “Bloodbuzz Ohio”
• Thomas Dolby, “She Blinded Me With Science”
• Sheryl Crow, “D’yer Maker”
• Fontaines D.C., “Boys in the Better Land”
• Pete Yorn, “All the Beauty” — Slater noted with sadness that Yorn had felt the need to include a statement that no AI was used in the making of the song
• Radiohead, “Daydreaming”
• Caroline Rose, “Yip Yip Yow”
• Oasis, “Supersonic”
• U2, “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”