Here's a week's worth of research to prove our point:
Monday, January 6, 2:30-3 p.m.
WKPX (88.5): Hours of kiddie punk evidently makes someone happy. Not me.
90.9: Broward's dependable hip-hop pirate station lies adrift in static-y silence.
WTMI (93.1): Unfortunately, one of the six songs on Party 93's playlist is a faux-opera track.
WZTA (94.9): ZETA slaps on a testosterone patch in the form of Metallica's "Enter Sandman."
WXDJ (95.7): Lite-Latin elevator music; no redeeming social value detected.
WPOW (96.5): Power 96 turns a blind ear to the R. Kelly video controversy by pumping his new single "Ignition."
WFLC (97.3): The Police's "Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic" is probably as adventurous as this adult-contemporary oasis gets.
WRMF (97.9): If you don't think it hurts to hear Travis Tritt's "I'm the Only One Strong Enough to Be Your Man," just give it a try.
Monday, January 6, 9-10 p.m.
WRMF: So this is where the American Idol also-rans go to die.
WZTA: Another guy with Eddie Vedder Disease? Oh -- it's "Jeremy." Never mind.
WHQT (105.1): At first mistaken for Milli Vanilli, this was later ID'd as Terence Trent D'arby. The hair extensions threw me off.
WLVE (93.9): For a minute, you can pretend you're in a dentist's office. At the very least, LOVE 94 makes my teeth hurt.
WBBG (105.9): Old Aerosmith: bad. New Aerosmith: worse.
90.9: Back in business -- not only with reggae but with a real person, taking calls instead of shuffling canned tracks.
WPOW: Suggested slogan for Power 96: "We'll play anything too black for Party 93.1!" Hence, BK2 and P. Diddy's "Bump Bump Bump."
WHYI (100.7): Guilty-pleasure time thanks to the chorus of Jimmy Eat World's "In the Middle."
WMIB (103.5): The former Mega 103.5 recently fired its staff and became the personality-free "the new booty-shakin' 103.5 The Beat!" Claiming to be unleashing "10,000 joints in a row!" the station checks in with DJ Kool's "Let Me Clear My Throat."
Tuesday, January 7, 9:45 a.m.-1 p.m.
WMXJ (102.7): Something listenable, right off the bat: "Eight Days a Week" followed by that stalking bassline from "Green-Eyed Lady." It's magic!
WMIB: Missy Elliot's "Work It" finds yet another station on which to rotate heavily.
104.1: "The Boss," as this station is known, plays a winning selection of warm lover's rock and older reggae jams.
WKPX: Girls Against Boys, what a surprise!
WLRN (91.3): The odd, quaking voice of rheumy Diane Rehm, in this case discussing U.N. weapons inspections: can't live with it; can't live without it.
WTMI: Same operatic drum-machine nonsense again.
WMCU (89.7): Family News in Focus, the "fair-'n'-balanced" report from this Christian station, presents (gasp!) a negative story on the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights League.
WXEL (90.7): Ordinarily, I'd pass on Richard Strauss, but the overture from "Dance of the Kitchen Boy" is so damn stirring!
WKPX: Hey! Something really funky is going on here -- first with Hybrid and the Baldwin Brothers, then with a new track that could only be from Meat Beat Manifesto, with spine-cracking bass pulses and ballsy gutbucket drums! Don't touch that dial!
WMXJ: In a bad mood, so the Turtles' "Happy Together" makes waiting for a yacht to quit blocking traffic that much more interminable.
104.1: Donnie Elbert's sad cover of "Where Did Our Love Go?" seems much more apropos.
104.7: Selections from an old Bill Cosby comedy album wash away the taste of those Jell-O commercials remarkably well.
WXEL: More fun from our other public radio station -- an interview with the executive editor of Sky & Telescope magazine!
Wednesday, January 8, 11:30 a.m.
90.9: "Shake ya ting!" advises the effervescent and very locally oriented DJ for this newly rastafied pirate station, pimping a Saturday-night party at the Hibiscus Restaurant/Nightclub in Sunrise, a hangout featuring Chinese/Jamaican/Guyanese cooking.
WEDR (99.1): In which 99 Jams, with a little help from Busta Rhymes, advises us to "Pass the Courvoisier." A little early, but... don't mind if I do, Mr. Rhymes, don't mind if I do.
Wednesday, January 8, 3:15-6 p.m.
WKIS (99.9): In clear violation of the 1999 Clichés in Communications Act, there's actually a country song with the line "Chasin' that neon rainbow."
WHYI (100.7): Give me gangsta over this insipid lovey-dovey faux hip-hop any day.
WMXJ: This annoying cover of "Working My Way Back to You" makes me pine for Frankie Valli's falsetto, and that's all sorts of wrong.
WRTO (98.3): Tropical pop always goes better with timbales. I'm a sucker for timbales. Throw a handful of roasted pine nuts on there and I'm in heaven.
WHYI: Pink's inane, maudlin ballad "Family Portrait" makes me ask "Why, One Hundred?" About 100 times.
WEDR: The techno-ragga artist informing me that I "got five seconds to get on the dance floor" must not know I'm on westbound Davie Boulevard. Shit, it's gonna take five minutes just to get past this light!
WKPX (88.5): If it's not kiddie punk, it's brick-tumbling death metal with Cookie Monster "vo-kills."
WTMI/93.1: Party 93.1 has apparently allowed a seventh song to penetrate the playlist, in this case Opus III's techno chestnut "It's a Fine Day." Welcome!
WLYF/101.5: No telling what song Lite 101.5 is currently inflicting upon our fair citizens, but it sounds like a pitch-corrected Charlotte Church revisiting a Toto medley in a wind tunnel. Horrendous.
104.1: The search for my new favorite station is over. The Boss' scratchy old roots reggae records -- and flesh-and-blood DJs -- are too good to ignore.
Thursday, January 9, 7-9 a.m.
WHYI/100.7: Repeated exposure to Kenny and Footy, the pair of bumbling numbnuts who run the morning show on Y100, has been shown to lead to an increase in sick days among the Broward workforce. And waiting for the two to come up with anything remotely funny is a sure-fire way to show up tardy.
WZTA/94.9: In hindsight, the Kenny and Footy show is like NewsHour with Jim Lehrer compared to Paul Castronovo and Young Ron Brewer, the morning jocks at ZETA.
WHYI/100.7: "The Game of Love," attributed to Santana featuring Michelle Branch, gives love yet another bad name.
104.1: Big ups to Tony Green, knowledgeable disc jockey for the Boss. Predictably, however, the histrionic "news" program issues a hearty pat on the back to Miriam Oliphant and a scathing slap at wrong-way man slaughterer David Farrall.
Friday, January 10, 10:30 a.m.
104.1: As the leering visages of Scott Stapp, Shakira, and Missy Elliot stare down from a demonic ClearChannel billboard, the Boss is kicking it old school with "Tell Me Something Good" from Rufus and Chaka Khan, followed by Billy Preston's "Nothing from Nothing." Yessir, think I've found my new station.
