WXPN’s 885 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century and Three Takeaways

In 2003, “Seven Nation Army” by the White Stripes was the No. 2 song of the year on WPLY (Y100) Philadelphia. The No. 1 song that year was “Times Like These” by Foo Fighters. The top 10 also included Staind (“So Far Away”), Trapt (“Headstrong”), and two hits from Chevelle.

“Seven Nation Army” is now recognized as the song that helped pull Alternative and Active Rock away from each other. Yet, it was and remains acceptable to both halves of the rock radio coalition that came together with grunge a decade earlier. Two decades later, “Seven Nation Army” is still a sporting event perennial, and the coalition stands.

In early 2005, “Mr. Brightside” by the Killers (and “Somebody Told Me” before it) was a further win for the “tru.alt” side of the Alternative format. Even if its reference point is New Order and not AC/DC, it’s accepted as a rock record now—it gets about 100 spins a week between Active and Classic Rock stations. It was a hit when Y100 changed format in 2005.

In those last few months, “Mr. Brightside” was still sharing Y100 with new music from Papa Roach and Crossfade. When crosstown WRFF filled the hole as Radio 104.5 two years later, it was able to commit entirely to “true.alt,” without the Active Rock. (It was also more gold-based, and both those things came to shape the Alternative format going forward.)

All that history came to bear this month when Triple-A WXPN Philadelphia counted down its listener-voted “885 Greatest Songs of the 21^st Century.” When the countdown finished Dec. 11, “Seven Nation Army” was No. 1 and “Mr. Brightside” was No. 2. The first Triple-A exclusive artist was Brandi Carlile’s “The Story” at No. 3; (that song was No. 4 on last year’s “885 Greatest Songs by Women”). As usual, the survey included songs that the station had never played until now (71 of them) or added to the library recently (“American Idiot”).

WPLY PD Jim McGuinn is on his second stint at WXPN now. The first was when the station tried reaching out to displaced Y100 listeners in the years before WRFF launched. At year’s end, he will become acting PD when Bruce Warren retires from programming (but not from the station). Even before the countdown, WXPN has been working to draw on the legacy of Y100 (and earlier Alternative WDRE, also programmed by McGuinn) and not just the progressive AOR of an earlier era.

Hearing the two songs that top the WPLY countdown is a reminder that even Triple-A listeners like to rock. Those that didn’t grow up with Alternative did grow up with AOR in a much crunchier era. That’s ironic, since some of the product shared between Triple-A and Alternative has been poppier. Most of the rock at Alt radio these days comes from heritage acts—Green Day, Linkin Park, Sum 41, the Offspring and Jack White himself. Alternative would benefit from a new galvanizing act that fills that need, but maybe Triple-A would too.

Two other thoughts on this year’s XPN Top 885:

It made me “hear some songs again for the very first time.” For all the times I’ve heard them on Triple-A, encountering them in the top 5 made both “The Story” and “If We Were Vampires” underscored what universal love songs they were. (It also helped that Isbell was interviewed right before “Vampires” played.) Hozier’s “Take Me to Church,” also in the top 10, came along during a post-Adele “Brigadoon” period when eclectic acts had a better chance of crossing over to Hot AC and CHR, but it didn’t feel any more or less mass-appeal than those other two songs. 

“The Story” was No. 4 Triple-A in 2004 just as “turbo-pop” was revving up, although it got a lot of exposure from singing competition shows. “Vampires” was only No. 26 even at Triple-A in 2018. There were some Top 40 ballads at that moment, in between Post Malone and “Havana,” and one of them was Ed Sheeran’s similarly themed “Thinking Out Loud,” but even that definingly mainstream song seemed like a stretch at the time.

If they’d come out during the ‘70s, both songs would have been hits for Linda Ronstadt or another mainstream artist. Now, I’m wondering how either of those songs could find their way to Hot AC, except as a freak viral occurrence. Even Triple-A could probably bring “Vampires” back as a current, since it was hardly saturated when new.

It was radio’s first major Bluesky event. Eighteen months ago, when Threads launched, there was a brief period of FOMO when stations and PDs, whatever their political leanings, joined hurriedly. You didn’t have to disagree personally with Elon Musk to feel that Twitter had become chaotic or a less useful promotional vehicle for radio. So far, I’ve found about a dozen mainstream commercial stations with Bluesky accounts, but none that are actually posting regularly yet. 

WXPN and its personalities did use the countdown to jump start their Bluesky feeds, and steer listeners over. In 2020-21, my monthly appearances with WXPN MD/p.m. driver Dan Reed to discuss my “Lost Factor” columns probably did more to grow Twitter followers outside the radio industry than anything else. 

This year, I did a handful of live postings during the top 10. One of those got about 225 engagements over the next 32 hours, as well as some new followers who seemed to be WXPN listeners. That won’t get me a book deal, but it would have been a higher-than-usual response even on Twitter.  Similarly, XPN has 37.300 followers on the current “X.” On Bluesky, there are about 2,300, but I could generally count on knowing what was happening on the air through jock and listener postings even at those times when I wasn’t listening.

Here’s the top 15 of the countdown as heard December 12:

1. White Stripes, “Seven Nation Army”
2. Killers, “Mr. Brightside”
3. Brandi Carlile, “The Story”
4. Outkast, “Hey Ya”
5. Jason Isbell & 400 Unit, “If We Were Vampires”
6. Wilco, “Impossible Germany”
7. Adele, “Rolling in the Deep”
8. Bruce Springsteen, “The Rising”
9. Amy Winehouse, “Back to Black”
10. Hozier, “Take Me to Church”
11. Johnny Cash, “Hurt”
12. Brandi Carlile, “The Joke”
13. Adele, “Someone Like You”
14. Amy Winehouse, “Rehab”
15. Flaming Lips, “Do You Realize”