do you listen to mainstream alt-rock radio? give me yr impressions

I have just started to again, after 15 years of, radio-wise, listening to R&B/hip-hop, pop and the indie rock varieties almost exclusively. I find it kinda pleasant!

I expected to hear the Black Keys, Mumfords and the Foo Fighters alot but haven't…goddamn do they play Muse alot… a lot of shit is very danceable…like I hadn't heard that Yeah Yeah Yeah's "heads will roll" before but that tune is as fuckin' bangin' as the Priest song.

this format is said to be home to the soggiest Imagine Dragons-ish shit, acts that are considered as faceless and slick as Styx, Journey et al were by RS and similar gatekeepers…but I dunno.
what are the key bands that have influenced kids in bands that alt radio plays…Arcade fire? Coldplay? Interpol? the strokes? It seems to me that the shit I'm hearing is much more wide-ranging…like has EDM come to bear on certain acts?

Just whatever you do, stay away from stations that follow the "Active Rock" format.
That's like a weird parallel universe where musical tastes haven't evolved much since 2001.

I listened to 6 music the other day (UK) for the 1st time in years and it was shit. No idea what XFM is like now and Kerrang Radio is more like if NME were running it tbh the time I heard it. I assume you only mean the USA radio though?

i have almost zero pulse on alternative radio anymore; the 'alt' station here still supposedly has that format but its playlist has been a messy jumble of old and new (usually unlistenable) songs for years now

a good number of songs seem to cross over from alt radio tho now that it is tolerating a lot of rather pop-ish material, especially the ones triple-a also plays -- like hozier or george ezra or sam smith (would you believe 'stay with me' started there?)

http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/9214-radio-friendly-unit-shifters-25-years-of-billboards-alternative-music-chart/

I don't remember the last time I listened to the radio

this thread inspired me to turn the dial to the '''''''alternative'''''' station here and it was playing house of pain's "jump around". i changed the station.

lol.

here is my overview of rock radio in 2014 (which links to similar things I wrote in 2013 and 2012), so I will start with that in favor of repeating myself:
http://narrowcast.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-20-best-rockalternative-radio-hits.html

the big songs of 2015 so far are Walk The Moon's "Shut Up And Dance," Robert DeLong's "Long Way Down," and AWOLNATION's "Hollow Moon."

Local station is currently playing Mumford & Sons - "Believe". At least this has a distorted guitar solo. Otherwise, it doesn't sound that different from a lot of pop music to me. (Edit: now they're playing Arcade Fire - "The Suburbs", which I actually like.) The previous eight songs were by: Pearl Jam, City & Colour, Tegan & Sara, The Black Keys, Mother Mother, RHCP, Zerbin (no idea who this is), and the Tea Party. I'm not sure that I've heard Muse on this station in years tbh.

James Bay - "Hold Back the River". I'm turning this off.

A while back Billboard's Alternative chart turned 25, and their countdown of the most successful songs in the chart's entire history had Muse songs at #1 and #3. their new single is doing pretty well too.

I heard them all the time a couple of years ago; I just had the sense that they were slipping out recently, mostly in favour of this poppier stuff. I haven't been listening to the modern rock station on any really regular basis, though, honestly, and was admittedly basing this partly on what kids are asking to learn on guitar.

"Madness" (the #3 alternative song of all time and longest running #1) kinda fit in with the new alt pop zeitgeist though, and that was their last album. it's possible the new album won't have anything quite like that, though. Foo Fighters still have a strong grip on alt-rock radio but I get the sense they're gradually being put out to the hard rock radio pasture.

The songs that were considered classics 10 years ago are still considered classics today. No rain, come as you are, disarm, daughter, etc still get a lot of play. So many listeners of today weren't even alive when those songs came out.

I wonder if the listenership is even that young. I mean I guess there are teens that listen to Muse but even the current hits by newer acts seem to skew old in some way or another.

but hey I grew up with a 90s alt rock radio that played U2 and Violent Femmes songs from the year I was born

I dislike that Hozier "Take Me to the Church" song.

Good point -- Would a 13-year-old me be listening to alternative radio today?

.dc101.com/contests/win-tickets-to-imagine-dragons/364423/

the big songs of 2015 so far are Walk The Moon's "Shut Up And Dance," Robert DeLong's "Long Way Down," and AWOLNATION's "Hollow Moon."

these are all pretty ok!

kroq plays garbage mixed with a few 'classics'

http://kroq.cbslocal.com/playlist/

not a fan

Garbage not considered "classic" yet?

kroq used to hold a candle for the 80s until I shipped off to college in 1997. then they started to play limp bizkit and metallica regularly and I stopped listening for good.. now they exist in this fucked up alternate reality where the Offspring is one of the top 3 bands of all time with like the chili peppers and sublime.

i miss the nu-metal days, was great to turn on local rock station to have something to laugh at for a couple minutes now and then. now they play stuff that isn't bad enough to be funny... just boring

just had to shazam the new AWOLNATION song because I couldn't believe how bad it was tho