Fresh Listen: CIND (Indie 88) Toronto, WXPN Philadelphia

For years, the narrative has been that current-based formats have been particularly hard-hit because their streaming competition has siphoned off the listeners most interested in new music. It was the explanation for both Hip-Hop and Alternative radio declines a decade ago. More recently, that theory has for many explained the travails of CHR.

Through it all, however, some Triple-A outlets have flourished. Non-comm WXPN Philadelphia posted record 6+ ratings in April, capping seven straight months of gains with a 3.5-3.8 rise. Spring ratings for CIND Toronto weren’t out when I first wrote this, but “Indie 88” was already Canada’s most talked-about station, thanks to weeklies that put it on track for a record book as well. It’s also a station that I hear about from readers these days, especially those who follow any international radio. UPDATE: It’s now officially No. 5 25-54.

If the “new music fans are gone” theory holds up, Triple-A should really be hurt as badly as any format, particularly Alternative. The audiences are just as new-release-conscious, and they’ve always been vocal about wanting their own particular mixtape instead of somebody else’s choices, going back to when that meant a mixtape and not a streaming playlist. In a few markets, Triple-A stations have become the only ones playing any current rock music, but that’s certainly not the explanation in Philly or Toronto.

What Triple-A often has to itself is music advocacy. At a time when voice-tracked hosts often find it easier to talk about anything other music, every break on both Indie and WXPN engaged with the music in some way, including a lot about artist birthdays and what was “released on this day.” Indie 88’s Lana gave away X/Los Lobos tickets by talking about the history of both bands. WXPN’s Jim McGuinn played OK Go’s new song, followed by “Karma Police,” and did make the connection between OK Go and OK Computer. WXPN and Indie are at opposite ends of Triple-A musically, but both stations offered a similarly encouraging experience.

Indie 88’s gains have come since it modified its format under PD Ian March and APD/MD Michael Religa. Like KINK Portland, another current Triple-A success, Indie’s current music parameters have expanded to include some crossover pop artists with streaming stories. 

Indie is not only 40% Canadian — higher than many of its peers at 35% — but also committed to 60% “emerging” artists within that quota. Canada has been a reliable supplier of “indie rock”—artists on the cusp of Alternative/Triple-A — for 20 years, which has helped provide some continuity on-air, even as the poppier music is filtered in.

Here’s Indie 88 on May 2 just before 2 p.m. with Lana:

• Mounties, “Tokyo Summer” (Canadian)
• Cage the Elephant, “Rainbow”
• Daft Punk, “Get Lucky” — Lana tells the story of how Pharrell forgot that he’d done a demo vocal until hearing the finished version
• Glorious Sons, “Come Down” (Canadian)
• Lumineers, “Same Old Song”
• Matchbox 20, “Real World”
• Tegan & Sara, “Closer” (Canadian)
• JJ Wilde, “Mess to Make” (Canadian)
• David Bowie, “Let’s Dance”
• Benson Boone, “Sorry I’m Here for Someone Else”
• Beck, “Where It’s At”
• Valley, “When You Know Someone” (Canadian)
• Pilot Speed, “Into Your Hideout” (Canadian)
• Marcy Playground, “Sex and Candy”
• Mother Mother, “Body of Years” (Canadian)
• Teddy Swims, “Lose Control”

And here’s the station again on May 26 just before 4 p.m. Lana was giving codewords for the station’s “Daily Departure” flyaways (that day was Jamaica), as well as teasing Dermot Kennedy tickets.

• Tegan & Sara, “Hell” (Canadian)
• Cage the Elephant, “Rainbow”
• Stevie Nicks, “Edge of Seventeen” — for her birthday
• Big Wreck f/Thornley, “That Song” (Canadian)
• Ed Sheeran, “Azizam”
• Lenny Kravitz, “Again” — it was also his birthday, with a story about his Paris apartment
• Dear Rouge, “Modern Shakedown” (Canadian)
• Billiane, “Crush” (Canadian)
• Adam Ant, “Goody Two Shoes”
• Role Model, “Sally, When the Wine Runs Out” — with a sweeper declaring the station “where new music belongs”
• Sarah McLachlan, “Building a Mystery” (Canadian)
• Wolf Alice, “Bloom Baby Bloom” (a “Test Drive” new music spotlight; Lana recommends that listeners check out their second album, Reflections of a Life)
• Beaches, “Last Girl at the Party” (Canadian)
• Black Keys, “Howling for You”
• Chappell Roan, “Good Luck Babe”
• Collective Soul”, “The World I Know”

WXPN last appeared in these pages for the 2024 version of its Top 885 countdown, this time featuring 2000s titles. Despite XPN’s ongoing modernization, there’s also a continued presence of first-generation singer-songwriter and Alternative acts. Dan Reed’s 6 p.m. Highs in the ’70s feature remains one of the station’s highest-rated programs. So does the Friday afternoon combo of Funky Friday and Robert Drake’s ’80s-new-wave Land of the Lost.

Acting PD Jim McGuinn, who is working alongside longtime PD Bruce Warren as part of the latter’s “phased retirement,” says that middayer Mike Vasilikos’s midday show is probably the best starting point for hearing the station “in format.” This week, the station starts its series of summer “Throwback Thursdays,” beginning with “all-1975” today. Here’s WXPN with McGuinn filling in for Reed at 5 p.m., May 21:

• Devon Gilfillian, “All I Really Wanna Do”
• Sigur Ros, “Staralfur” — McGuinn talked about having just found the album on vinyl and playing this song as a “moment of Zen” for listeners
• Beths, “Metal”
• Bon Iver, “Everything Is Peaceful Love”
• Elliott Smith, “Waltz #2 (XO)” — along with the observation that Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon sounds sort of like Smith
• Velvet Underground, “Temptation Inside Your Heart” — from an ’80s compilation of unreleased songs
• Matt Berninger, “Bonnet of Pins”
• Lucy Dakus, “Ankles”
• OK Go, “Love”
• Radiohead, “Karma Police”
• Bob Dylan, “Simple Twist of Fate” — there had just been a Dylan tribute concert that several of the station staff had been at
• Counting Crows, “Spaceman in Tulsa”
• Maren Morris, “Carry Me Through”
• Police, “Walking in Your Footsteps”
• Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On”
• Paul & Linda McCartney, “Smile Away” — the first two songs of the daily “Highs in the ’70s,” both from albums released this day in 1971. 

Any programmers seeing Bon Iver, Elliott Smith, and the Velvet Underground in succession might not think there are lessons for mainstream formats here. Lack of engagement with the music is only one of CHR’s myriad issues. It’s hard to imagine that merely talking more about music would be a silver bullet. But the mainstream genre that still engages the most with music is Country radio, not coincidentally the most durable of current-based formats.

Top 40 programmers briefly leaned in to the concept of music discovery, then moved on when it became clear that a stager before a (often not-so-new) new song wasn’t enough. Fighting for that image is even harder at a time with the pipeline of new product so clogged. By contrast, Triple-A has a steady stream of new music, in part because they’re still willing to play it.  But it’s a reminder that discovery and curation hasn’t entirely been wrested away, even among the most ardent of music lovers.