"Q101" is back. Somewhat. (Chicago, Harvey: 2014, leasing, house)

[NARFALICIOUS]

I was a long time listener to Q101 and was shocked as everyone else when they switched away from Q101 to news or whatever. Well. The alternative is back.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/busine...,1292139.story

[ChiNaan]

I had never heard of Q101 (I honed in on WBEZ and WXRT when I moved to the area and have pretty much stuck with those) until it was about to switch formats a couple of years ago and everyone was freaking out about it. I tuned in to see what the hype was about. It was all mainstream 90's rock with a little mainstream modern rock mixed in-- nothing alternative about it whatsoever. I still don't understand the hype. Even if that's your favorite type of music, can't you find it just about anywhere? Maybe it's a nostalgic thing to folks who grew up around here?

[snoylekim]

^^ Q101 started as WKQX in either 1977 or 1978 ( my memory is going) as competition to WLUP and WDAI in the album rock category . Fortunately , XRT was 24 hours a day by that time . They morphed into the "alternative" ( Nirvana, etc) in the 1990s .. Their original marketing hurrah/entry was they were commercial free for 1 month .. we were spared Pacific Stereo and Peppers commercials for 30 days ..Mitch Michaels, media tycoon, was one of the jocks when they launched .

The good 'alternative' stuff was always at the bottom of the FM dial .. even when discussing "XRT ..

[Dreadnought]

I listened off and on from '99 until the shutdown. Liked Mancow in the early 2000's, although I was probably one of the few that did. In the later years I liked Electra in the midday despite the last letter game, which I wasn't a fan of. She seemed to take the shutdown pretty hard. Also enjoyed Local 101.

Truth is though, this format of station is basically in tons of cities in America (It's 105.7 The Point in St. Louis for example), and it wasn't really all that unique or special, but people loved it.

[Drover]

WKQX has been broadcasting on 87.7 for about 2 years now. But 87.7 is actually a TV frequency (analog channel 6) and so the station, by law, carries a video signal too. For a while they were just carrying visual traffic and weather reports on the video signal; not sure what they're carrying nowadays because they stopped their digital TV simulcast. By January of next year all remaining analog TV signals will be shut off and so 87.7 won't be available as an analog FM radio frequency any more. Cumulus, who operates 101.1, recently bought Merlin, who operates 87.7 and is leasing it to WKQX. Now that Cumulus owns Merlin and by extension bought WKQX's lease, they can move it back to 101.1. I don't know if they own WKQX outright though.

[williepotatoes]

Originally Posted by snoylekim

^^ Q101 started as WKQX in either 1977 or 1978 ( my memory is going) as competition to WLUP and WDAI in the album rock category . Fortunately , XRT was 24 hours a day by that time . They morphed into the "alternative" ( Nirvana, etc) in the 1990s .. Their original marketing hurrah/entry was they were commercial free for 1 month .. we were spared Pacific Stereo and Peppers commercials for 30 days ..Mitch Michaels, media tycoon, was one of the jocks when they launched .

The good 'alternative' stuff was always at the bottom of the FM dial .. even when discussing "XRT ..

It was a real treat to listen to the radio when "less commercials" and "commercial free hours" were actually popular marketing strategies.

[urza216]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

I had never heard of Q101 (I honed in on WBEZ and WXRT when I moved to the area and have pretty much stuck with those) until it was about to switch formats a couple of years ago and everyone was freaking out about it. I tuned in to see what the hype was about. It was all mainstream 90's rock with a little mainstream modern rock mixed in-- nothing alternative about it whatsoever. I still don't understand the hype. Even if that's your favorite type of music, can't you find it just about anywhere? Maybe it's a nostalgic thing to folks who grew up around here?

On the radio? No. Not in the Chicago area.

[Pantless1]

I hope they don't bring that moronic cross between a low rent Stern and Glenn Beck Mancow back...

[NARFALICIOUS]

I love Mancow. I used to listen to his whole show from 5a-10 during the late 90s-early 2000s

[American Black Star]

Originally Posted by ChiNaan

I had never heard of Q101 (I honed in on WBEZ and WXRT when I moved to the area and have pretty much stuck with those) until it was about to switch formats a couple of years ago and everyone was freaking out about it. I tuned in to see what the hype was about. It was all mainstream 90's rock with a little mainstream modern rock mixed in-- nothing alternative about it whatsoever. I still don't understand the hype. Even if that's your favorite type of music, can't you find it just about anywhere? Maybe it's a nostalgic thing to folks who grew up around here?

Oh, it was awful at the end.

What happened was "Nu-metal" really ruined rock radio in the late '90s and early 2000s.

Q101 had the really good balance of Modern Rock like Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana, Jane's Addiction, and Pearl Jam, mixed with Dinosaur Jr., Flaming Lips, Ween, Primus, and other kind of left of center rock, and female drive stuff like Tori Amos, Alanis Morrissette, PJ Harvey, Liz Phair, Veruca Salt, and Hole, mixed with some electronic type stuff like Nine Inch Nails, Stabbing Westward, Sneaker Pimps, Underworld, Fatboy Slim, and The Chemical Brothers and Moby. They mixed some Hip-Hop stuff like The Beastie Boys, Cypress Hill, Eminem, and even like Ice Cube and Public Enemy and House of Pain in there.

At one point they even really started to play a lot of The Ramones, Joy Division, The Cure, The Smiths and stuff like that, once they went on shuffle.

Plus, Local 101 with James Von Osdol was great too.

It really was a good station up until Fred Durst and like Linkin Park and bands like that kind of destroyed the balance