The contemporary Christian rock format, “Joy 99,” debuted this morning at 7. Just to be curious, I set the car radio on 99.1 to hear it come on the air. (KFUO cut off last night at 10, so the frequency was empty from then to 7 this morning.)
Evidently, 99.1 is going to be the main signal for a three-station simulcast, with two rimshot FMs, one in Potosi and one in Bowling Green. It’s doing a three-way top-hour station ID, for three different stations, but under the moniker “Joy 99.” I’m presuming that before today, those two rimshot stations played the same format, as many of the callers in the first hour of Joy 99 congratulated the station on its new stronger signal that they could hear while at or near their jobs, in contrast to before, when they could only hear such music on part of their commutes and at home.
During the first hour, the two hosts, a Blondie and Dagwood pair, reminisced about the former CCR station in St. Louis, “The Bridge,” WCBW, 104.9 FM. In 1997, Jacor (now ClearChannel) purchased WCBW, chased out the CCR format, moved the then-Majic 108 (KMJM, 107.7) over to 104.9, to clear the bigger 107.7 frequency for the Top 40 format (KSLZ, Z-107.7) they wanted to bring to STL. Both stations still have the same format/calls/owner to this day. The woman host said that The Bridge “went off the air, and that station started playing some jungle bunny rap crap. And that’s not Christian.”
WOW. Did I just hear those good racial progressive non-racist anti-racist fundagelical Christians insult the favorite “music” genre of black Americans, in fact, blacks worldwide? (FYI, Magic 104.9 is not, and Magic 108 before it was never, a rap format, it was R&B. AMAF, they deliberately avoided the hard core gangsta rap of the 1990s). On this same station in the same hour, the same woman and the man sitting next to her bragged about their East St. Louis urban ministry, boasting about how East St. Louis needs Jesus because of all the crime. WTH? As a measure of central tendency, black Americans tend to profess Christianity more enthusiastically (read: charismatically if not intellectually) than white Americans, and that’s in spite of some recent inroads Islam has had in American prisons and its many guests of color. Seems like ESL needs a little bit more than Jesus.
I changed the station at about 8 AM. Never to change it back again.
