“It’s a Hotter than Hanson Weekend”
Front row seats to Hanson at the Palace… tickets given away all weekend long. I think I’d rather be run over by a garbage truck, but the kids liked Hanson, like they enjoyed the Spice Girls. Well that’s how it was at the tail end of the 1990s.
Imaged and branded like a CHR station, Q95-5 here sounds like it’s solidly in the Adult Contemporary world. Certainly, Benny Mardonis – “Into the Night”, even in 1998, wouldn’t mix well with the most pop hit CHR format, save for a specialty show. But this is in-format, and the variety of music from 80s AC/CHR classics to Semisonic and Hootie & The Blowfish is astounding! Lest we forget, 1998-99 was also the time period of the boy bands… Hanson – MMM Bop! Yikes!
This is not to say that Q95-5 is anything less than a truly GREAT sounding station. True CHR in ’98 was very Rock oriented with some Hip Hop thrown in – it was just the era – And Q95-5 brands itself “The Best Music”, with some excellent contemporary jingles used frequently. I’ve always been an advocate of Hot/Modern AC stations using that slogan over “Variety” or “Mix”, which I’ve always thought of as wimpy, as if the station is telling its audience that it’s too chicken to play all the music they like. Just a personal opinion.
TWe know nothing about the dj, except that she has an almost identical voice to one Carolyn Cruise heard in Boston at Country WKLB. Coincidence? Someone might know.
There’s a big signal fade-out just as the Top Hour ID plays (drat!), other than that the audio quality is excellent.
Up to that point in time, WKQI had been Q95-5 since 1996, following now-retired morning show host Dick Purtan’s departure from the station for WOMC. Before that, they were known as just “Q95” and as Q95, they sounded even more like plain old Adult Contemporary despite being Hot AC (which they became around 1994 or so). Even after the switch to Q95-5, they still played some softer AC titles from their days as Q95. I Found it very interesting that Q95-5 combined AC titles with hard rock and some light rap music. In fact, Q95-5 during this time played all 80s titles from 8-9 p.m., as well as Backtrax USA (80s version) on Sundays.
Susan Cruise, real name Susan Evani, lives in Seattle these days. She did weekends for me at KKWF/100.7 The Wolf for a couple of years, but now is working for online company Zulily.com doing marketing.
I just stumbled upon this, how funny! I worked in these markets in this order-Cadiallc, Battle Creek, Lima, Akron, Buffalo, Detroit Long Island, Philly, Seattle..and now I am back in Detroit at 104.3 WOMC with the Wake & Bake Show with Susan Cruise from 8a-12N and various weekend and fill-in shifts.