Staff editorial
Cruisin’ PCH on a sunny 75-degree Southern California afternoon; ocean is sparking, soft breeze blowing, and to top it off, your best mix is blasting as you sing at the top of your lungs – perfect.
Suddenly, something goes terribly wrong as an annoying clicking ends the moment and Britney keeps repeating herself over and over, at remarkable speeds — the CD is scratched and an awful realization rushes through your head. The ocean-side cruise could be ruined. No other CDs, 20 more minutes to go and silence is not an option. But wait, maybe there is an option — the radio.
Granted, most people haven’t revisited the radio since high school because their iPod and best old mixes have them pretty much covered, but sometimes there are no other choices so to control the detrimental situation, press FM and start scanning the airwaves in hopes of reviving the vibe from before the scratched CD went insane.
Nothing is coming through the radio, the tears start welling up while silence persists, but your panic comes to an abrupt halt when Pepperdine’s KWVS 101.5 flashes through your memory – victory.
It seems like a potentially awful drive has been salvaged and while a fuzzy 106.7 KROQ refuses to play in Malibu, the crisp reception of 101.5 pulls through.
Unfortunately, the optimism takes an unexpected, terrible turn when hard-core metal screams through the speakers. You’re now screaming back, frightened and frantically reaching for the volume switch you find yourself swerving to avoid rear-ending the Mercedes in front of you and the music makes a perfect background for the near – death experience it just caused.
What is so much head-banging metal doing on KWVS?
When the station premiered in 2003, it was all-Christian all the time. Last January, however, students were finally granted permission to play secular music on Pepperdine’s radio station and the number of shows was doubled. But, KWVS is not using this new-found freedom to its full advantage. Many who resort to the radio in Malibu probably notice that KWVS, one of the few stations that comes through, often screeches heavy metal.
There is nothing wrong with an occasional Primal Fear or Fatal Smile song, but an overwhelming trend including a genre of bands with names such as Clawfinger and Dragonforce needs to be questioned.
So why KWVS? Small doses of angry head-banging madness is greatly appreciated, but sometimes students want to calmly cruise on a sunny day without hard-core tunes causing panic and possible collisions on the road. If “NOW 10” starts skipping, the CD case is in the trunk and the iPod ‘s running low on battery, KWVS has got to be there as a reliable back-up.
It is hard to cater to such a broad range of music-loving college students, so there are understandably going to be some disagreements regarding the station’s line-up. The station does offer some hip-hop and rock blocks, as well as a Sunday – night indie show, but there is definitely a hard-core metal playlist. It is not quite the happy medium KWVS is capable of reaching.
Having more variety shows would be a good fix. Go ahead and sandwich a Tears of Anger song between Kenny Chesney and Fall Out Boy. It would be an extremely diverse blend of tunes for every taste and metal doesn’t seem so threatening wedged with country and wanna-be punk rock.
Also, other college radio stations use their outlets to start grass-roots trends or bring the underground scene to the mainstream. Pepperdine’s secular radio is barely three years old, so it’s understandable that the station is still growing. That is students should take advantage of an almost clean slate and get involved in any way possible even if all they can do is call in and request a song. One song request will make a difference in building a more diverse station.
This is nothing against the hard-working disc jockeys at KWVS. In fact, without them, students would be left with worse alternatives since barely any stations come through in Malibu.
But until they mix it up a little at the Pepperdine radio station, the choices are few: rock the scratched CD, transform in to a hard-core head-banger, or embrace the sorrowful silence that dooms your otherwise perfect sunny-day drive.
03-30-2006