JOPLIN, Mo. — as a fully-fledged member of Generation X , I enjoy how radio stations discover new markets and segments in an effort to play music that appeals to us. Now that we’re older, we have more buying power, and advertisers are chasing after our fatter wallets. One of the ways they get to us is on the radio. “X” has always been a key identifying letter for radio stations that wanted to market themselves as edgy and extreme. Now, “X” means cool alternative stuff from the ‘90s, judging by what I hear on the radio. The Lovely Paula Hadsall, my stepson Mitchell, his girlfriend and I made a weekend getaway to Terre Haute, Ind. (I thought that meant “high land,” but according to Mitchell and his girlfriend, it translates to “terrible Haute.") before the road trip, I discovered a new alternative rock radio station, KWXD-FM, which calls itself “Radio X 103.5 The Evolution.” The station, based out of Pittsburg, plays a lot of great stuff from my college days. The playlist is all over the place, in a good way. I’ve heard The Pixies played right up against the Beastie Boys Ñ when I plug that into my search engine, it comes up with “great radio despite a weird name.” as we drove through St. Louis last weekend, we found another “X” station playing an even more eclectic, messed-up mix. where the Evolution slow-plays its Gen X appeal, this St. Louis station pushes all in: WSGX-FM markets itself as “100.3 GenX Radio.” The only cohesive strand tying this station’s playlist together can be answered with one question: Is it a song? seriously. This station makes iPod Shuffle stations such as KMXL (”Mike 95.1”) out of Carthage sound as narrow as a soccer mom’s CD collection. consider: ~ Last Saturday the station played “about A Girl” by Nirvana (the electric version from “Bleach,” not that whiny unplugged version), then Dr. Dre’s “Forgot about Dre,” then “I Touch Myself” by the DiVinyls. in a row. ~ on the way back home, we heard “Mrs. Jackson” by Outkast, then “Smokin’ in the Boys Room” by Motley Crue, then “Waterfalls” by TLC. ~ as of the writing of this column, the station’s web site reports that it just played “Headstrong” by Trapt, “Hip Hop Hooray” by Naughty by Nature and “Last Resort” by Papa Roach. I’ve heard a lot of crazy combinations on shuffle stations, but I’ve never heard variety like that. Hair bands, hip-hoppers and hipsters all sharing the same airwaves, like it’s singer-songwriter night at a Nashville night club. Judging by what Clear Channel and other radio geniuses put on their playlists, they must think that Gen X is an easily distracted demographic with varied interests and focus about as wide as a fish-eye lens. And they would be right. However: Stations such as these answer a long-lingering question that our generation has dreaded. We’ve always worried what the oldies stations would play when we got older, and they haven’t changed a bit.
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