Rock, Alternative, and the Rock Alternative

These are the top four Alternative stations in North America right now:

KPNT (105.7 the Point) St. Louis (7.1-8.3 6+ in the March PPM) is one of the few Alternative reporters that never gave up the Active Rock lean that typified the format in the late ‘90s/early ‘00s. The Point plays both currents mostly found on the Active Rock chart (Pretty Reckless, Seether, Chevelle) and Alternative (Black Pumas, Kennyhoopla, Imagine Dragons, Cage the Elephant). It sits out some poppier acts (currently Glass Animals). Last Friday, I heard it doing a “March Music Mayhem” brackets contest that pitted Tool, “Anema,” against Metallica, “Master of Puppets.”

In March, the Point was second in the market only to Classic Rock sister KSHE. It would also be the highest-rated PPM station on the Active Rock panel, even though that format has posted several similar success stories over the last year. 

The Point’s main positioner is “Everything Alternative,” although it also uses the “St. Louis’s Rock Alternative” slogan that was typical for the format in the ‘90s and early ‘00s. The station’s top spin on powers is 54x a week. Here’s KPNT on Saturday, April 3 just before 2 p.m.:

• Royal Blood, “Typhoons”
• Linkin Park, “Lying From You”
• Metallica, “The Unforgiven”
• Kennyhoopla f/Travis Barker, “Estella”
• Disturbed, “Down With the Sickness”
• Beastie Boys, “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party)”
• Weezer, “All My Favorite Songs”
• Rise Against, “Savior”
• 30 Seconds to Mars, “The Kill (Bury Me)”
• Green Day, “She”
• Three Days Grace, “Never Too Late”
• Pretty Reckless, “And So It Went”
• Offspring, “Gone Away”
• Johnny Cash, “Hurt”

CHDI (Sonic 102.9) Edmonton, Alberta (6.4-5.9 12+ in the Numeris winter book) bills itself as “Alternative Edmonton,” making it the only profiled station not using some variant of “rock alternative.” Sonic’s international currents come mostly from Alternative, although Canadian stations in the format have a harder-rocking feel overall. Much of that comes from their support of acts like Royal Blood (“Trouble Coming” was No. 1 in Canada), and numerous Canadian bands that have had the same aggressive-but-melodic EDM-influenced feel for years.  

Sonic’s top spin on powers is 53x. Here’s the station just before 11 a.m. on April 5:

• Blue Stones, “Let It Ride” (Canadian, ’70s-flavored, but not the BTO song)
• Foo Fighters, “Learn to Fly”
• Glorious Sons, “Closer to the Sky” (Canadian)
• Rise Against, “Nowhere Generation”
• Our Lady Peace, “Is Anybody Home?” (Canadian)
• Cannons, “Fire for You”
• Mother Mother, “I Got Love” (Canadian)
• Outkast, “Hey Ya”
• Arcade Fire, “Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)” (Canadian)
• Cage the Elephant, “Skin and Bones”
• July Talk, “Beck/Call” (Canadian)
• Kings of Leon, “The Bandit”
• Hozier, “Take Me to Church:
• Grandson, “Dirty” (Canadian)

KTBZ (94.5 the Buzz) Houston (5.1-5.3, March PPM) bills itself as “Houston’s Rock and Alternative,” and, at various times during the hour, both “Houston’s Rock” and “Houston’s Alternative.” Its most-spun currents also include some titles from acts that did better at Active Rock than Alternative (Glorious Sons, Badflower), but it’s most telling that the Buzz’s most-spun currents played only 32x last week. (iHeart sister WXDX Pittsburgh, the fifth most successful Alternative outlet this month) is on a similar template. 

Here’s Houston’s Buzz just before 11 a.m., April 5:

• Franz Ferdinand, “Take Me Out”
• Everlast, “What It’s Like”
• Soundgarden, “Black Hole Sun”
• Shinedown, “Second Chance”
• Imagine Dragons, “Whatever It Takes”
• Offspring, “The Kids Aren’t Alright”
• Linkin Park, “Numb”
• All Time Low f/Blackbear, “Monsters”
• Nirvana, “All Apologies”
• All-American Rejects, “Gives You Hell”
• Ataris, “The Boys of Summer”
• Kaleo, “Way Down We Go”
• System of a Down, “Chop Suey!”

WWDC (DC101) Washington, D.C. (5.2-5.2 March PPM) is “D.C.’s Alternative Rock.” Of the four stations, it has the most noticeable presence of the indie pop that has been prominent on the Alternative charts over the last few year. 

DC101 doesn’t draw from the Active charts in the same way as KTBZ or KPNT, but its pop/punk component and gold still provide rock/pop balance. In a market without a Hot AC at the moment, DC101 has benefitted by being the station that still plays “Don’t Speak” and “Semi-Charmed Life.”

Here’s DC101 on Monday, April 5, at 11 a.m. The station’s top spin on powers is 49x a week:

• Powfu f/Beabadoobee, “Coffee for Your Head (Deathbed)”
• Ataris, “The Boys of Summer”
• Clairo, “Sofia”
• Blink-182, “Adam’s Song”
• Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Californication”
• All-American Rejects, “Gives You Hell”
• All Time Low, “Once in a Lifetime”
• Nirvana, “In Bloom”
• AJR, “Bang”
• Kings of Leon, “Use Somebody”
• Machine Gun Kelly & Blackbear, “My Ex’s Best Friend” 

Many Alternative programmers, who formed their musical allegiances in an earlier era, were grudging at best about the Active Rock period of their format. But format observers are just as critical now that some stations are playing the likes of Post Malone and the Kid Laroi. It’s the inclusion of “TikTok pop” from outside the format that seems to have been the tipping point in this dialogue. Alternative has been a niche format for a while in most places, but few were as critical when the “disposable pop” was homegrown. Also, there was no impetus to have the “time to rock a little more?” discussion before Active Rock started to rebound.

For most Alternative stations, that discussion is probably “a little more.” Not every rock-leaning Alternative has KPNT-type numbers or is in a heritage rock market like St. Louis. Not every Alternative station has the advantage of no Active Rock competitor, and a few are in format wars of attrition where it’s hard to rise above a 3 share regardless of what they play. Post-COVID listening won’t look exactly the same as it did 15 months ago, but it will change, and it’s hard to know if male-driven Active Rock will do as well as it has over the last year.

That said, it has been my contention for a while that there’s just enough current rock music between Active and Alternative to construct one successful format. DC101 in particular has always done a good job of sounding balanced (in its early Alternative days, it would often spike in an AC/DC or other heritage rock title just to show it could). And DC101 differs from the stations now assailed as too pop by a relative handful of songs, and by its timing. 

It’s equally telling that St. Louis, Washington, and Houston are all using the word “rock” in some way. When the “rock alternative” slogan first took hold in the mid-‘90s, I wondered if it was consigning a then-culturally dominant format to a second-place niche. In the time of format convergence that followed, the time between Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park, “rock alternative” only seemed to underscore that the Alternative format wasn’t an alternative at all. Now it may be the thing that makes rock radio a bigger tent again. 

(Thanks to Radioinsight publisher Lance Venta for suggesting this story, which began when he noted the twenty-fifth anniversary of WXRK [K-Rock] New York as the Alternative station that helped launch the Active/Alternative hybrid. Please leave your comment on the state of Alternative radio.)