Drive 105 to become Love 105
According to Chris Riemenschneider in a story in the Star Tribune, Drive 105 will be changing to Love 105, which wouldn't mean much, given Drive 105's middling brand of alternative rock, if it weren't for the fact that that means no more Homegrown on Sunday nights at 10 p.m. I had a great time during my tenure on the show as a co-host, and as guest host the couple of times I got to do it.
Homegrown, my hat's off to you, and may you land on your feet, whatever that means.
So at this point, in the last couple months, the Strib has cut 145 employees, the Pulse has ceased print publication, Jim Walsh got unceremoniously axed from City Pages, and now Homegrown's done?
Just what in God's name is the world coming to?
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Radio
15 comments:
Drive 105 was better than nothing which is what the Twin Cities are now left with as far as mainstream alternative music goes. I guess the listeners will be fragmented again while the Love105 crapfest flounders only to be replaced by the always-on-standby alternative format once again.
in all fairness, i shouldn't really say anything about drive 105's content because i didn't listen to it aside from homegrown. to me, the very idea of mainstream alternative, though, seems strange. because alternative on the surface would seem to be outside the mainstream, and thus hard to commercialize. yet we know they've done it. i think the problem that a lot of radio stations (and newspapers and record stores, etc.) is that the wave of alternative music that started in the mid-'90s was borne on the backs of two distinct sets of people: those who were earnest in their search for something new and those who were just into what was new. that's not a value judgment; for some people, music is just a diversion and there's nothing wrong with that. but these two groups of people ran side by side there for a bit. when the increasing availability of content on the internet pulled away people who were willing to work a little harder to find stuff, the mainstream alternative didn't take it too seriously, because they still had the mainstream listeners. but as it's become increasingly easier to get all of this content online, as there are an increasing number of outlets for this content, the market has become fragmented.
I feel that you can't discount the impact of the Current on the market here, and no matter what you think of the Current's content, I think you'd be hard-pressed (well, unless you're a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist Republican) to think that a commercial radio station losing out to a public radio station is a mostly bad thing. granted, you lose diversity of stations, but is it really that huge a loss when it's drive 105?
maybe. prove me wrong, kids. like i said, i wasn't overly familiar with drive 105.
I loved Drive 105 and I'm not affraid to admit it. I listened to it since it's inception 5 years ago. I listen to the Current alot more, but it's always nice to have another station to turn to. The best part about Drive was that they played alot of "Classic Alternative". It was a quality place to listen to some chill music with some content. From Gomez to Guster, and the Violent Femmes to the Pixies; Drive was always a solid choice when I was, well, driving. Now when the Current has one of it's misses (about 50-50 on the hit/miss if you ask me) I am forced to tough it out or put in a CD. This will inevidably bring my radio listening to a complete halt. Bon Voyage Drive, I will miss you.
As if our city needs yet another crappy, tasteless, geezerly pop station.
We already have Lite, Kool, and JackFM for that dreck. And the enraged demographic checking the new station's link to see what happened to the former station? Heh!--I cannot imagine one single person in this crowd saying "Yay, you guys! This station will do just fine! I LOVE Jimmy Buffet! And there's no where NEAR enough Neal Diamond on the air!"
This waste of airspace won't earn even one eightieth of one share of this city's listeners.
I give those clowns a week, just like that station that took over Zone105 ever-so-briefly. Yep, just the same, crappy, middle-aged-adult pop format a like-minded committee was just sure would fly in this city...on such a weak trio of signals.
I can only hope it won't be a whole year before Alt comes back to fill the void.
Great call, corporate America (Disney)! Here's hoping you'll recognize this to be a miserably bad call sooner than later.
This really sucks for Peter Gabriel, Squeeze, The Knack and all their fans who need to hear their songs once an hour. Might as well jump now!
okay drive was like my life..im not saying i sat at home everyweekend just to listen to drive but drive has all the best music (besides ween) on the station and i cant belive its gone!!! LOVE STATION WHAT THE HELL?!?? we have so many love songs why do we need a whole fuckin station ! if drive doesnt come back they are makeing a big mistake....i just cant belive my favorite music has now become...a love station...>:-[
i was so pissed when i turned the radio on in the morning and instead of hearing the usual drive105 stuff, i heard some sleezy voice say, "and the new Love105..."
what i liked about Drive 105 was that it gave a broad variety of mostly well known and not so well known alternative music that spanned from more than the recent months. i like the Current, but i am silly and dont like jazz and hip hop all that much, so when i listen to the Current, songs that i liked would be followed by many that i didnt.
one other major thing i liked about Drive, was that it did not have stupid talkshows in the morning. they actually had music on, and djs rarely monopolized the air.
i just hope a new station will fill in the space that Drive 105 made.
I loved Drive 105, it was the only station i could listen to and now hear the same song within the same hour. We don't need another cheezy station like Love 105. I want Drive back!!!
1st off, Drive 105 was the greatest station i have ever heard of. who doesnt want to listen to great music with hardly any comericals and a good local show? I was very very angry when i heard the music on my preset 105.3 was sleazy jazz. I think the cities has just lost one of the best music scenes they have seen.
Alternative will rock on forever!!
well, i'm just absolutely stunned with the overwhelming response to drive 105's transformation into love 105. doesn't seem like people are very happy about it, and i doubt that anyone who likes the new format is ever going to love it.
and basically, that's the tragedy here-- in trading drive for love, we've really traded love for mediocrity. clearly, everyone who's posted on here relied on drive 105 for their morning commute, or as a place to turn to to just get solid music that they wanted to hear. will we be able to say the same about love 105. i have my doubts.
i love drive 105! when i went to turn on my radio and heard cher singing "i got you babe" i was so confused i thought there was some huge mistake but then sadly i heard my FAVORITE station had changed. i really dont think love 105 is going to get any listeners...is there anyway to make drive come back??
i would do anything to get drive back. sure the current is great but its nothing like drive. i never had to turn off my radio when i was listening to drive, the songs were all awesome and nothing was over played. i know alot of people feel the same. i have no idea what to do. but i just want to do something to make drive come back! im really upset about this change/ ...and i can only hope that love105 will just go away!!
I can't even look at my radio anymore, it's too depressing. Who needs a whole station for stupid love songs? It's the exact same thing as 102.9 lite fm. Drive 105 was what I listened to when I just wanted to escape from my life for a while. I loved the variety of music and it was where I found new artists that I like. love105 must die...
I thought that it was a joke when I turned on 105.3 the other day and heard really shitty music. I kept going back to 105.3 hoping that it would be drive 105 but no luck :( I'm so depressed that it now spouts out shitty love songs. Drive 105 would play my favorite songs... all the time. They also got me into new music... ARGH I HATE LOVE105.
This isn't about worshiping at the alter of capitalist FM radio...for us, the (now former)105fm listeners, it's about what music we enjoy, what we grew up with, what we heard when WE were in our early 20s & getting drunk every night, what music we can relate to(feel like we belong to) & thus what can help us escape the madness & disillusionment of a post-1997 aural hell filled with the Britneys, J-Los, 50-Cents, P-Diddys, Avrils & Linkin Parks which the The Current, sadly, only seems to embrace every generic(I refuse to say independent) version of...that is when they're not too busy playing cloying folk/bluegrass marathons....
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