(Note: This piece was originally written as part of a job application. I applied for a writing job at a radio industry trade magazine and was asked to submit a piece of unedited writing along with my published clippings. This is what I wrote and submitted. I never heard back, so assume it didn't go over too well.)

When I moved away from New York four years ago, among the many things I left behind were the radio stations that provided the soundtrack for most of my growing up. There were those Sunday nights listening to Vin Scelsa’s "Idiots Delight" on WNEW, learning about bands and artists and poets that I could never have been introduced to anywhere else. Every summer, NEW would countdown the firecracker 500 of the top rock songs of all time. Bets would be made among all my friends to see which of our favorite bands would place highest, and when the top twenty came around at the end of the holiday, we’d all gather down by the river, with a portable radio or car stereo blaring, listening. Zeppelin’s "Stairway to Heaven" always ended at Number one, so when one year it peaked at number two, anticipation was high that one of our bands might break through. When the opening keys of the Who’s "Won’t Get Fooled Again" broke in, you would have thought our friend Tommy had hit the lottery, running around, screaming, eventually landing on a car hood to play windmill air guitar just as Townsend’s guitar crashed in. The rest of us bought his beer for the next few weeks.

WNEW is a talk radio station now, and Scelsa has moved on to a college station last time that I checked. Another casualty of an ever-changing industry I guess. Much of the radio landscape of New York is different than it was only four years ago, so return trips can often get bittersweet when around a radio dial. On my most recent trip for a friend’s wedding, I had a rental car and spent plenty of time listening to local radio, mostly to WPLJ, which has been playing top 40 or Adult Contemporary music since its switch from rock in the early eighties. Back then, PLJ’s format provided a bit of comfort and fresh air on a dial crowded with stations trying to find a place in a highly demographically diverse city. Sure, it was middle of the road Top 40 music, but when you had your fix of heavy metal, or dance music, or classic rock, PLJ provided a nice, easy mix of the best of contemporary pop music.

Many stations have switched to that format over the years, but it’s a format hard to maintain when younger listeners’ tastes change so frequently. WPLJ somehow stuck it out, reason being that while it played the same songs much of the rest of country was playing, it never lost its New York feel. One of the joys of traveling to different cities is to be able to listen to local radio that you can’t hear anywhere else. In Atlanta, there’s 99x. In Nashville, there’s Lightning 100. And in New York, there’s WPLJ.

This past weekend, if Scott and Todd in the morning on PLJ weren’t enough to let you know you were in New York, there were plenty of spins of Springsteen’s latest single to reinforce the locale. A peek at PLJ’s playlist for the week revealed Springsteen’s "The Rising" as the eighth most played song. Much higher than the Hot Adult Contemporary totals for the rest of the country. A look at the rest of the playlist reveals that they aren’t just playing the single. "Into the Fire," Springsteen’s ode to the firefighters on September 11^th checks in as well. Also on the playlist is Jersey band Seven and the Sun’s bouncy tune "Walk With Me" which I haven’t been hearing much anywhere else. Local boy Marc Anthony’s "I’ve Got You" is high up there too.

Yes, Avril Lavigne’s "Complicated" is the most played AC song in America this week, and PLJ spun it more than any other track as well. But somehow, PLJ peppers the playlist just enough with touches of the tri-state area, so you always know where you are. For me, if felt good to be back home again.

Radio has been consolidated lately. And from what I’ve read, many stations throughout the country play only the things that corporate leadership allows, making for a homogenized playlist from city to city. And satellite radio, a grand idea that lets listeners tune into the same channel without commercials from New York to California, has become very popular. But how will you know when you’re closing in on Cleveland, or Chicago? How will you get to experience what Neal Cassidy did in Jack Kerouac’s "On The Road," when in the middle of the night, after a rambling cross-country trek, he knew he was getting close to New York by the be-bop jazz he was pulling in on the radio?

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Copyright © 2002 Joe Pagetta