Bye Oldies, Howdy Jack (and Howdy Oldies Again)

I think I'm probably the only person in Music City who's glad to see Oldies 96.3 go. Or is at least willing to say it publically.

I have fond memories of the morning that Jack FM came into my life. I was still in Carbondale, and a friend emailed me the link to the original Jack station in Toronto. Back in those days, I didn't have a cable modem, and I was on a reaaaaalllly slow 28.8 dial-up modem. It's a good thing no one needed to get in touch with me that weekend, because I was streaming that station (and the other two Canadian Jacks - Calgary and Vancouver) all weekend long. I'd never heard anything like it.

In the two years since, the Jack FM phenomenon has moved into the U.S., with a lot of success and some mixed reaction. link link link

My take? I love it. I'm pretty much genre-less, although to say that Jack isn't a genre is a fallacy. For the Nashvillians who remember Thunder 94, it's pretty similar without as much of an alt-kick to it. It also reminds me a lot of pre-country switch KDF. There's a little bit of country rock thrown in, but it's minimal. So far the Nashville version hasn't sounded quite as cool as DaveFM in ATL, which is heavy on REM, or the Canadian/Rogers Group versions, which give a lot of love to cool Canadian artists. But I'm hoping that as the station has a few weeks to ease into its new format, it'll find its own place and do what Dave has done and promote Nashville's artists. Jack stations in other towns may not have on-air talent, but they make up for it by having awesome shows.

And that brings up another subject - the loss of the oldies station and poor, poor Coyote McCloud. As someone said earlier today, he's known as one of the three great on-air talents of this market. It's sad to see him go, and I hope he lands on his feet at another station. But it is, unfortunately, an indication of the way that radio is going today. This really is "iPod radio". Will Nashville take to a station with all music and attitude? Time will tell. But I'm looking forward to spending a few nights with Jack myself.

(Oh, and a note to any Nashville Jack station personnel who might stumble across this blog entry - your email address isn't working that's linked on your site. It's kinda hard to comment.)

EDIT: What a difference an hour makes. As soon as I posted this, Star 97 became Oldies 97 and Coyote McCloud had a job again. I guess it's true that the only true constant is change. Maybe everyone can be happy after all.