End of the Rock

I was listening to the end days of WBCN on the way to work today, and it almost made me sad to lose something that hasn’t really been what they would like to think they’ve been for at least the past 15 years.

As they played The Kinks, into the Flaming Lips, into Johnny Cash, I was thinking that this would have been a really good radio station. Too bad that for more than a decade, WBCN was nothing more than a shadow of its former self, a station with a constant identity crisis. I’m pretty sure that the final benediction for WBCN won’t feature much Limp Bizkit, Korn, Creed or the other dregs of the 90s that they glommed onto for a time.

This is a station that found its only success in the wilderness years by paying for syndication rights to Howard Stern and lucking into New England Patriots game rights as the Patriots began their run of NFL domination. This is a station that turned to the heinous Opie and Anthony on several occasions in an attempt to make itself relevant. In a recent years, it has gone to playing a mix of the same old tired tunes, not too alternative, not too classic rock, that you can probably hum in your sleep.

So while I will miss all they stood for, maybe, and feel a little sad about missing out on the much cooler station many people who worked there perceived it to be, I’m sure there are plenty of other stations out there that can feed us a dispiriting mix of Foo Fighters songs and interchangeable DJs.