Nothing's Gonna Change: An Ode to College Radio

Exiting college and entering post-graduate life allows for an abundance of much-needed time to reflect and understand why the lack of what existed during it, is now something to be missed. For me, it’s working in college radio. 

I first experienced the cult-like magic of college radio my freshmen year during a visit to see my lifelong friend, Fiona, at Tulane University. My flight arrived the same evening as her weekly late-night slot at WTUL. I stayed up with her to do her 2 a.m. shift at the station, located in the student center basement. Throughout her hour spot, soundtracked by Yung Lean, U.S. Girls, and Nicole Dollanganger, I discovered the fluidity and freedom of college radio, and how it’s truly about showcasing your unique blend of music with a platform that mutually benefits yourself, your audience, and the musicians. 

After transferring colleges during the pandemic, I knew I wanted to get involved with college radio in any capacity I could. At the time, the music staff at 90.3 KRNU was small; a huge draw to the broadcasting program involved sports programming. Music programming was always present, but not always the focal point. I wanted to spotlight how important and impactful the music programming could be if given a little love. I made it my biggest and most personal goal to showcase to the journalism and mass communications college how much the music mattered.

The radio station itself was covered in signed posters from Wilco, and promotional posters from artists like black midi, Laura Marling, and Wye Oak. The staff office was filled with more posters than I could ever count, alongside endless stacks of albums, showcasing decades of independent music history within one small room. It was the first time I saw so much of the music I enjoyed reflected in a physical space with others who shared that love of it. I wanted to amplify that feeling with anyone who felt receptive.

A haul of CDs found after organizing the office in 2022.

After hosting music shows on air, I stepped into the music director position, serving as the first contact point for record labels, promotional companies, and artists who wanted to get their music heard. Being selected for the role showcased a trust in my taste too, as the job is all about curation. I admittedly took the job very seriously, spending hours a day listening to albums and singles, editing audio files, and gushing over records in my feedback to labels and promoters. 

The relationship a music director has with the music and their audience is something I find endlessly interesting and symbiotic. Any job with so much subjectivity involved has a unique dynamic to it. You, as the curator, listen to an album, decide whether or not you enjoy it, whether or not others would, and then, decide which tracks you will play or pass along for others to play. It’s not always that simple though, what if you don’t particularly love it but know others would? What if I’m obsessed with it but I know not everyone would be? There’s a balance that you must strike in knowing what is the best choice to make, but it’s also about risk and a left-of-center approach. If you don’t love something that everyone seems obsessed with, you have some authority in deciding not to play it. Maybe not playing it will allow you to expose someone to an artist they’ve never heard of before instead. It’s not Top 40 radio, you can play almost anything you want, so why not play the off-kilter stuff? 

I didn’t do it to be purposefully contrarian, but I loved having the freedom to play tracks that weren’t traditional picks for airplay, like an album’s longest song that might have an extended three-minute outro or an intricate and engaging instrumental track. Sometimes I did just like playing the lead single. Some standout tracks from this category are “Bull Believer” by Wednesday, “Engine,” from Slaughter, Beach Dog, and “Dust Beam” by ML Buch.

Perhaps it’s a painfully optimistic approach, but when it comes to this intangible tug-of-war between what listeners will enjoy and the music director’s personal taste, I always assume the best in the audience and that they will go in with an open mind, giving everything a chance like I did. I found many of my favorite musicians this way, and it gave me the skillset of finding something to love in almost everything. 

A question I’ve heard often been plagued with through my experiences is the question of why college radio matters. Exposure at college radio is part of the bigger picture of an independent artist’s marketing campaign. In the early 1970s when “college radio rock” became its own short-hand and niche, it was common practice for DJs to play the music of smaller artists, cycling through their discography and exposing it to new audiences. When these artists became big enough to receive commercial radio airplay, they no longer ruled the college radio landscape. It’s always been a chance to give an artist new ways to connect with listeners through spins of their records, interviews, in-studio sessions, and more, whether that leads to a commercially successful career or a cult following. 

Beginning in the 1980s, magazines like College Music Journal, or CMJ, reported the “CMJ Radio 200,” listing the top 200 most-played albums on college radio during any given week. In recent years, the digital reincarnation of these charts is found online at the North American College & Community Radio Chart. Performing well on the NACC’s subsequent charts can grant artists more press, better touring opportunities, more airplay, and overall, strengthen their resume as an artist, support them financially, and create more buzz around their project.

A December 2000 issue of CMJ

A December 2000 issue of College Music Journal

Photo Credits: worldhistoryradio.com

Looking back at old issues of CMJ or old NACC charts allows us to have another form of cataloging, serving as a time capsule for independent music. By looking at an old chart, I can see who was getting their big break or who was just getting started at any given time. As a DJ or programmer at a college station, you get to have a little bit of a say in how things shake out and have some bragging rights that you contributed to the success of an album. At the time of writing, the Top Five on the NACC is dominated by MJ Lenderman, beabadoobee, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Jack White, and Clairo. Even notating this now will date my writing, but serve as an encapsulation of a period of time in alternative music. 

When I think of quintessential college radio rock, I harken back to the imagery of the 2010s, when bands like Best Coast, Death Cab For Cutie, Fleet Foxes, and Father John Misty were at their prime. Even in recent years before streaming services essentially became monopolies, radio was one of the first ways independent artists found their listenership. Maybe some of these artists aren’t getting many spins at college radio anymore, or maybe they are. Legacy artists like Jack White are charting currently, but their initial time being played at college radio gave them leverage to be where they are now. 

As a former music director, that was the most special aspect of it all, getting to absorb music constantly, and acting as a piece of the puzzle in an artist’s career. If I could be the catalyst in a listener finding their new favorite artist, that’s all I could really want. I look back on my old show playlists often, re-listening to music that at one time blew me away in some capacity. It’s always nostalgic and melancholy in a way, no longer having access to the public airwaves to ramble on about what’s new in the music world, but it just manifests itself in new ways. Listening to submissions instilled in me an even stronger and more keen ability to discover new artists and listen to albums that I may have no sense of familiarity or prior connection to. 

I also found that connecting with others who were in some way involved with their college station has led me to deep friendships and meaningful professional connections. It’s like being a sorority alumnus; there’s a shared camaraderie with other former music directors that feels a little bit secret and special. 

My last day as Music Director for 90.3 KRNU.

Photo by Dulce Garcia

Many artists I’ve played at one time have sky-rocketed in fame since adding their music to our library. Artists like Ethel Cain, Chappell Roan, Faye Webster, Royel Otis, and Arlo Parks are a few that have grown exponentially since their first college radio campaigns. It provokes a bit of cognitive dissonance in me to think about which artists have had their big breaks since being sent their albums for consideration, but not in a way that feels like I was solely responsible for their success. It's honestly just neat to be able to say that a tangible action of mine contributed to an artist's growing career, even if it was just a spin or a comment on air about how much I resonated with their material.

The majority of artists played on college radio remain criminally underrated, but many find their core and most dedicated fanbases through buzz that stems from avenues like college radio. It's up to the next generation of college radio programmers to discover and continue sharing these artists with the world. This passing of the torch is more like the passing of a sacred, important duty.

In May, on my last day of college and last day as music director, I cried a bit during my final show. I held it together for the majority of the two-hour-long special, where I played through my favorite 2024 releases thus far. The sentimental value of wrapping up my last months of college into a perfectly timed production was hard enough to do, but fully realizing that it truly was the last time was a difficult finality that felt hard to conceptualize. Endings are difficult no matter the context or reason, but ending a job and involvement so heavily revolved around something as emotionally engaging as music felt somehow heavier. My relationship with music was never going to end, the medium in which I found and engaged with it was just going to change. The last song I played on air was “Split Me Open” by Mannequin Pussy, which ends with the ironic and anthemic refrain, “Nothing’s gonna change!”

In an effort to catalog some of my favorite releases I listened to during my two years as a college radio music director, I’ve created a playlist with a selection of some great ones. It's on the longer side, so listen on shuffle at your leisure! Even since my graduation, there have been so many more artists and albums at college radio to discover, so it can never truly be comprehensive, and it can’t stop here! The discovery process only ends when you choose to stop looking.