WBUQ 91.1 FM

This station, as college radio stations go, is pathetic. It wasn’t always this way… about fifteen years ago, there was a great selection of different genres to tune into, and it was the way college radio is supposed to be: FREE FORM. For example, someone with a metal show wouldn’t get crucified by some tool of a station director for playing some James Brown or Butthole Surfers because he/​she FELT LIKE IT. College radio should be fun, unpredictable, provocative, and an alternative to corporate mall muzak. These days, WBUQ is none of these things.
One of my buddies had a show ten years ago, and told me about a station meeting, in which this cabal of dorks who ran the show went on some twenty-​minute rant about «sticking to your format». They never really gave a coherent reason for this, although I can’t say that they didn’t practice what they preached. I remember one of these guys dj’d under the name of «shovel» or something equally retarded, and the ad for his show featured sound clips of Papa Roach and Shaggy. Whatever, the guy was consistent in that all the music played on his show sucked.
Whenever I tune in now, they got:
a) metal shows (which are hard to screw up, as long as you’re playing actual metal and not stuff by guys with chinstrap goatees and puffy sneakers, making embarrassing attempts at rapping between riffs)
b) hip-​hop and r&b (which is fine, if you’re into that)
c) vapid sorority girls talking about dumb crap for hours on end, under the pretense of valid social commentary
d) the same crap they play on the pop stations
If you listen to the Susquehanna University station, or the Wilkes University station, you’ll still hear some pretty good shows, and music you haven’t heard before, that you’re unlikely to hear anywhere else (other than good college radio). My theory is, around the time WBUQ started sucking was also around the same time BU started to really market itself to dumb rich kids from Jersey, rather than academically-​competent, working/​middle-​class kids from PA. Most of those dumb rich kids became business majors because they’re unimaginative, and unimaginative people typically have lousy taste in music.
So it goes.

College radio at its best!