Thursday, January 12, 2006

Best Radio Stations in the United States

I used to work for an advertising agency that placed ads all over the US. My job was to place my clients commercials on a radio station and get the most bang for the buck. I used to be able to tell you the stations that had the highest ratings in the country. This didn't always equate to a good station, but would put more ears listening to our ads. Since we couldn't listen to the stations physically everyday they sometimes would send us sample CD's of the music they played. This is where I'm coming up with what I think are some of the best stations in the country. People in our office used to fight over the following sample CD's.


1. KCRW-FM Santa Monica, CA KCRW has become highly influential in the music industry; Nick Harcourt has particular clout as many music executives listen to Morning Becomes Eclectic whilst stuck in Los Angeles' infamous morning traffic. KCRW has been credited with discovering or promoting many artists, including Beck, Coldplay, Dido, and Norah Jones.
Download: Sufjan Stevens- Chicago (Live on KCRW)


2. KEXP-FM Seattle, WA (formerly KCMU) is a public radio station based in Seattle, Washington, that specializes in independent and alternative rock programmed by its disk jockeys. Its broadcasting license is owned by the University of Washington, which operates the station in a partnership with Paul Allen's Experience Music Project.
Download: Brendan Benson- Spit It Out (Live on KEXP)


3. WXRT-FM Chicago, IL XRT, as it is affectionately called, plays a very broad library of mostly adult-oriented rock music between the mid-1950s and present, including blues, reggae, folk-rock, pop music, and rock 'n' roll. There has been remarkably little disc jockey turnover at XRT since it began in 1972. The station is hard to define musically. They play well over 2,000 cuts on a regular basis. Most artists come from the Classic Rock or Alternative rock genre, though they play many other styles. The format as it exists today began in 1972 as a night-time-only progressive rock radio experiment, sharing the 93.1 frequency with a variety of different ethnic and foreign language programming that aired during the daylight hours.
Download: Big Head Todd and the Monsters- Broken Hearted Savior (Live on WXRT Studio-X)


4. KBCO-FM is an adult album alternative radio station licensed to Boulder, Colorado and serves the Denver-Boulder area. The station's format is an ecletic variety of blues, reggae, folk, pop, and rock from the late-1960s to the present, which they call "world class rock".
Download: Drive-By Truckers (Live on KBCO Studio-C)

2 Comments:

Blogger JohnnyMitchell said...

That Seattle station isn't the one nicknamed "The End" that the roomates in the Real World Seattle worked at, is it?

The Real World Seattle was the #2 Real World ever behind Chicago.

I'm excited to hear the Sufjan Stevens and BHT live performances, Pope.

4:43 PM  
Blogger JohnnyMitchell said...

Oh yeah, one other thing. I've actually listened to WXRT online a few times, but the quality is pretty low. Which of these have good online streaming audio (or have it all)? Any of them on that short list of radio stations you can connect to through Itunes?

4:46 PM  

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