Los Angeles' KROQ Radio Shakes Up Format, Shocks Fans
By Albie Bach

LOS ANGELES, CA- Rock music fans in greater Los Angeles were shocked yesterday when KROQ radio shattered the foundations of it's much-touted "World Famous" format with the addition of Cypress Hill's 1992 break-out single "Insane In The Membrane" to the station's play list.

"I was stunned," said Manhattan Beach resident Mark Gonamult, 31, of KROQ's bold programming move. "I practically fell off the ladder at the house I was painting when [the Cypress Hill song] came on the air." Gronamult, an avid KROQ fan, said the song "just doesn't fit on KROQ."

However, KROQ Program Director Kevin Weatherly said this was not the first time KROQ has invited such reactions from their loyal listeners.

"KROQ is known around the world for pushing the programming envelope," Weatherly said. "Our fans have come to know that they should expect the unexpected from the station that identifies itself as 'Los Angeles and Orange County's only new rock station.' Sometimes we lose a few followers along the way to musical enlightenment - but very few can argue that it's harder to lead than to follow, and KROQ is a leader."

While some, like Gronamult, argue that Weatherly is tampering with the compact and finely-tuned, cutting-edge programming machine that is built on a core of dozens and dozens and dozens of tracks by Nirvana, Green Day, No Doubt, Limp Bizkit and the Offspring, ratings for the venerable rock station (in the four parts of Los Angeles that the station's signal can actually be received) would argue to the contrary.

But it's not just radio listeners that scrutinize KROQ. According to leading music industry publication Billboard Editor-in-Chief Peter Branff, stations around the country look to KROQ to break new singles and safely establish them as hits before adding them to their own respective play lists.

"Kevin Weatherly is a ground-breaker and a genius, and the music industry respects that," Branff said. "What he's doing with Cypress Hill now is no different than what he did in 2001 when he took a chance on adding the Lo-Fidelity All-Stars 1995 single 'Battleflag' in rotation or what he did in 2000 when he added Soundgarden's 1993 release 'Black Hole Sun.' He invites a lot of criticism by taking chances on such fresh, new music, but his track record proves that his intuition has served him correctly with every risk he takes. More often than not, nay sayers of Weatherly's shrewd programming decisions follow suit within months of his moves."

KROQ quickly established itself as a trend-setter in the early 1980's when it primarily played cuts from then little-known acts such as U2, R.E.M. and Depeche Mode. The fact that the music industry as a whole then released only about 200 albums a year on average, 192 of which were covered by other stations and formats, had little influence on sculpting the play list that would boldly differentiate KROQ from the competition in the 80s.

Weatherly, who took over KROQ's programming duties in 1993, is quick to point out that today's music industry is a vastly different animal than the one that courted upstart KROQ twenty years ago.
"Between the growth of the industry, an onslaught of independent releases and the advent of the internet and .mp3's, there are currently thousands of new music releases a year," Weatherly said. "But we're not daunted by sifting through them to find the diamonds in the rough - the very best releases from the brightest new talent in rock music today. Whether it's something recently added like The Verve's controversial 'Bittersweet Symphony' or an unproven track like 'Crawl' from a fringe, multi-platinum act like Linkin Park, if it's good, KROQ will be the first to play it."

Time will tell whether or not Cypress Hill's "Insane In The Membrane" will meet with the industry's approval, but in the meantime, not all music fans have spoken out against the song's addition to the KROQ play list. Buddy Solick, 32, the Manhattan Beach house-painting partner of Mark Gronamult, isn't going to fall off any ladders over Cypress Hill's presence on his beloved KROQ.

"Sure, it's different," Solick said of the Cypress Hill song. "But after the first 10 or 15 times I heard it yesterday, I went out and bought the album. Cypress Hill might be a little derivative of more-established groups like Outkast, but they're trying to do their own thing and they sort of remind me of other things I've heard before that I liked, although I might not have known it at the time. And that's exactly why I listen to KROQ - it's how I discover new music."

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