Of the 14 stations that helped us determine “What Classic Hits Stations Added in 2025,” the conservative ones are those finally moving into the early ’90s now. iHeart’s WMJI (Majic 105.7) Cleveland has an Adult Hits sister station to protect, but that didn’t stop it from finally adapting some of the titles that had been other stations’ first foray into the ’90s years ago. Cox’s KONO San Antonio went to the TLC/Backstreet Boys late ’90s.
More than half the stations we looked at had adds from the ’00s or beyond. KRTH (K-Earth 101) Los Angeles and KXSN (Sunny 98.1) San Diego went into the ’10s. Classic Hits stations sometimes modernize by adding recent remakes. Both those stations began playing “Landslide” by the Smashing Pumpkins; both continue to play it by Fleetwood Mac as well, but the 1997 live version.
Audacy’s WOMC Detroit and WCBS-FM New York are both playing Nelly’s “Ride Wit Me” now, even though CBS-FM has Throwback Hip-Hop/R&B WXBK (The Block) next door. CBS-FM also added 2pac’s “Changes.” Almost immediately after this article was first published, WOGL Philadelphia took that a lot further, adding nearly 30 songs, many of them Hip-Hop throwbacks from J-Kwon’s “Tipsy” to Luniz’ “I Got Five On It.”
“What Classic Hits Stations Added” is a reader-favorite look at the songs that (mostly) marked the ongoing modernization of the format over the last year. The songs cited here got their first spins on a given station between May 2024 and last week. Generally, I looked for titles that had gotten at least three spins this week or last, to avoid weekend/specialty songs.
It’s not always the case that stations find a lot of new titles that test for two years in a row. WGRR Cincinnati, which had a lot of adds last year, hasn’t filtered in any new ones yet this year. But WROR Boston, with a long list in 2024, had another dozen new songs this year. I also added one outlier, although maybe WAKY Louisville, which is more ’70s/’80s based doesn’t deserve to be described that way, since it’s No. 1 in the market this month.
Here’s “What Classic Hits Stations Added in 2025.”
CHBM (Boom 97.3) Toronto (Stingray)
- Blink-182, “All the Small Things”
- Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Otherside”
- Souldecision, “Ooh It’s Kinda Crazy” (Canadian)
- Sublime, “Santeria”
KOLA Riverside, Calif. (Anaheim Broadcasting)
- Harvey Danger, “Flagpole Sitter”
KONO San Antonio (Cox)
- Alanis Morissette, “Hand in My Pocket”
- Alanis Morissette, “You Learn”
- Backstreet Boys, “I Want It That Way”
- En Vogue, “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”
- TLC, “Creep”
- TLC, “No Scrubs”
KQQL (Kool 108) Minneapolis (iHeart)
- Killers, “Mr. Brightside”
- Sublime, “Santeria”
KXKL (Kool 105) Denver (KSE)
- Nena, “99 Luftballons”
KRTH (K-Earth 101) Los Angeles (Audacy)
- Ataris, “The Boys of Summer”
- Gotye, “Somebody That I Used to Know”
- Nirvana, “The Man Who Sold the World”
- Offspring, “The Kids Aren’t Alright”
- Smashing Pumpkins, “Landslide”
KXSN (Sunny 98.1) San Diego (Audacy)
- Coldplay, “Yellow”
- Bob Marley & Wailers, “Is This Love”
- Foster the People, “Pumped Up Kicks”
- Green Day, “Boulevard of Broken Dreams”
- MGMT, “Kids”
- Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Scar Tissue”
- Smashing Pumpkins, “Landslide”
WAKY Louisville (W&B)
- 38 Special, “Hold on Loosely”
- Romantics, “What I Like About You”
- Bob Welch, “Ebony Eyes”
WCBS-FM New York (Audacy)
- 2pac, “Changes”
- Nelly f/City Spud, “Ride Wit Me”
- Pink, “Just Like a Pill”
WLS-FM Chicago (Cumulus)
- Alanis Morissette, “Head Over Feet”
- Matchbox Twenty, “Unwell”
WOCL (Sunny 105.9) Orlando (Audacy)
- Backstreet Boys, “Larger Than Life”
- Shaggy f/Rayvon, “Angel”
WOGL Philadelphia (Audacy)
- Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, “Tha Crossroads”
- Dr. Dre, “Nuthin’ But a ‘G’ Thang”
- Dr. Dre, “Still Dre”
- Fun, “We Are Young”
- Gotye, “Somebody That I Used To Know”
- J-Kwon, “Tipsy”
- Kelly Clarkson, “Since You Been Gone”
- Lady Gaga, “Poker Face”
- Lauryn Hill, “Doo Wop (That Thing)”
- Lumineers, “Ho Hey”
- Luniz, “I Got 5 On It”
- Next, “Too Close”
- 2pac, “Changes”
- Usher, “Yeah!”
WOMC Detroit (Audacy)
- Adele, “Rolling in the Deep”
- Avril Lavigne, “Complicated”
- Nelly f/City Spud, “Ride Wit Me”
- Nirvana, “All Apologies”
WMJI (Majic 105.7) Cleveland (iHeart)
- Aerosmith, “Janie’s Got a Gun”
- Aerosmith, “What It Takes”
- Bonnie Raitt, “Something to Talk About”
- Def Leppard, “Armageddon It”
- Great White, “Once Bitten Twice Shy”
- Marc Cohn, “Walking in Memphis”
- Mr. Big, “To Be With You”
- Tom Petty & Heartbreakers, “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”
WROR Boston (Beasley)
- 3 Doors Down, “Here Without You”
- Cardigans, “Lovefool”
- Creed, “With Arms Wide Open”
- Duran Duran, “Ordinary World”
- Evanescence, “Bring Me to Life”
- George Michael, “Freedom ‘90”
- Nickelback, “Photograph”
- Nirvana, “All Apologies”
- Nirvana, “Come as You Are”
- No Doubt, “Just a Girl”
- Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Scar Tissue”
- Soul Asylum, “Runaway Train”
WWZY (Boss 107.1) Monmouth/Ocean (Press Communications)
- Bob Marley & Wailers, “One Love/People Get Ready”
- Maroon 5, “Memories”
- No Doubt, “Underneath It All”
Might I recommend a listen to classic hits 1035bobfm.com? They’ve ruled the ratings for over twenty years in Austin. It’s kind of astonishing for a two person staff. The music choices are very incisive, the imaging is snarky, and the m.d. half of the Bob duo SLAVES over each day’s log, I’ve heard.
I should definitely include Bob Austin or Jack Nashville in these stories, since they’re effectively Classic Hits (as opposed to Adult Hits) for their market. Besides, Classic vs. Adult Hits is less of a distinction anyway if you’re playing “All Apologies.”
It is a very well programmed radio station. you can definitely hear the passion in it, and when you have Anne as your voice talent, well, she’s just the best.
I love to see WAKY/Louisville #1. I wish a lot of stations nationally would switch to a WAKY inspired 70s and 80s focused format to compete against the existing classic hits station in their market who modernized a lot in recent years. This would shake things up in a lot of places. I know, demos, demos, demos.. Here’s the thing, as has been discussed here many times when classic hits stations add newer titles they start playing music other stations in their market already play. So I could see a situation, due to fragmentation, where the 70s/80s station has similar numbers in desirable demographics as the heritage classic hits adding in 00s music with the WAKY type station winning overall due domination in older demos. Of course this scenario could only play out if the WAKY formatted station has a decent signal.
In the 1990s, Oldies radio had an opportunity to move the music forward into the 1970s.. That would’ve coincided with the rediscovery of 1970s pop culture and with younger audiences aging into the format. Instead we had WCBS-FM remaining fixated on the Beatles and in having an airstaff full of WABC veterans. As a result the Oldies format got a deserved reputation for being perma-frozen. The 2005 flip of WCBS-FM to Jack outraged the Oldies freaks — turned out to be a mercy killing.
In the 1990’s, WCBS-FM was one of the country’s top rated, and top billing stations. Joe McCoy programmed it perfectly. CBS-FM was not your normal oldies station, it was listened to for not just the music, but the jocks as well. And Bob Shannon and Bobby Jay were ‘must listens’ for anyone interested in going ‘Behind The Hits”. I’m not sure if you paid attention to the CBS-FM playlist by 1999, but they were weeding out lots of songs, and restricting the playlist to about a total of 300 to 500 songs. It was starting to get stale. That’s around the time they let Joe McCoy go, and the people who took over had no association with the heritage of the station. The specialty shows, which were fixtures for listeners for decades, were suddenly gone. By 2001, it was basically torn apart, and a shell of what it had been just years earlier. Yes, it was a shock when they pulled the plug on the format, but they never considered the fact that listeners had grown up with the station, their kids were familiar with the music because of their parents, and now the jocks, the friends they listened to day in and day out, were suddenly gone. The station should’ve gradually added more 80s music in 1999. Instead, they simply shrunk the playlist, told the jocks not to talk as much (listeners enjoyed hearing the jocks), and it simply got boring. As radio is today!
Also, Charles, I don’t know if you actually listened to CBS-FM but, since the beginning of their oldies format, they always played 70s music. It was ‘future gold’ starting in January 1973, and in the mid to late 70s, the core of their format went up into the mid-70s. In the 80s, they played songs that had come out up through 1979 on a regular basis. So, I’m not sure what you mean that they were ‘perma frozen’. Just setting the record straight. Heck, Bob Shannon played 80s music as ‘future’ gold’ each night, until about 1988. I know, because I recorded his shows. And, I’m not sure what you’re referring about when you mention the WABC jocks being on the station. That became a large part of the station’s appeal. CBS-FM was not a ‘regular’ cookie cutter oldies station. I try to bring back the heritage of Bob Shannon, Bobby Jay and Norm N Nite when I do my shows on Pop Gold Radio dot com. You can check the programming schedule for when I am on.
In the early ’90s, when the Oldies format was exploding nationally and some markets had more than one FM, there were some people in the industry who believed that CBS-FM wasn’t old or focused enough. At a time when stations like KODJ Los Angeles were trying to counterprogram K-Earth by being older, I definitely heard from people who thought CBS-FM was vulnerable for playing the ’70s. But if you didn’t like the ’50s and early ’60s, they might still have read old to other people because they played “In The Still of the Night” and “Earth Angel.” When WCBS-FM came back from two years of Jack, even though they started to push into the ’80s, they also made sure to have ’50s and pre-Beatles features to give the appearance of covering all bases, and they were wildly successful doing so.