KXXR also known as 93X is supposed to be Minnesota’s local “Hard Rock” radio station. I tuned in today and here are the first three artists I heard:

• Cake
• The White Stripes
• Red Hot Chili Peppers

Here’s a question for you:

• W.
• T.
• F?

Thought I had the wrong station until they played some whining, crying screamo, and then some Post-Black-Album Mooktallica. Then I knew I had the right station: 93X! Meddle for Boys in Caps! Crank it up while you drive your 4×4 down to the “World of Wheels“!

Bitchin.

Its bad enough to see hard rock watered down like the drinks at a strip club, but there were more commercials and annoying DJs than songs. Should anyone be surprised that terrestrial radio is losing market share to satellite?

Don’t get me wrong, I think Tool should be played every single day, but the Fucking Red Hot Chili Peppers?

This town needs a real Hard Rock / Metal radio station. Let’s hear some Prong (Did you know they have a new album?) or Motorhead. There’s an interesting genre called Melodic Metal, but 93X wouldn’t know about that.

There’s been some great releases in the last couple years; Kamelot‘s “Ghost Opera”, Blind Guardian‘s “Twist in the Myth”, The Deathstars “Termination Bliss”, In Flames “Come Clarity”, and more; bands that kick the piss out of crap like Godback and Nickelsmack, bands that might even make people interested in music again, but you won’t hear them on 93X.

Female-Fronted Hard Rock / Metal bands are going gangbusters; Nothing Gained, Scarlet Sins, Betty X, and my new favorite, OTEP. These are professional bands with awesome material, and they are even TRYING to get Pop Metal stations like 93X to play them by doing metal covers of pop songs. Scarlet Sins did a cover of “Strangelove” by Depeche Mode, and OTEP covered “Breed” from Nirvana, you can check it out here:

OTEP – “BREED”

OTEP | MySpace Music Videos

OTEP’s remake of “Breed” hit the Billboard charts in Canada. Have you even heard of this band? Of course not, because you were listening to God-Damned-Nickel-Smack-Back on 93X.

When 93X first launched, I thought they understood: Nirvana, Motorhead, G-n-F-n-R, Prong, NIN, classic Metallica, Marilyn Manson…, stuff that made me blow out the speakers in my car over and over again.

What happened? Regardless, the honeymoon is over, and where the playlist for 93X hasn’t stagnated completely, it’s fallen to mook-rawk and screamo. Ever hear a radio station say they needed to go ‘back to their roots’?

Art Is Resistance
-Zero

Posted in Music, Review, Ubersuck