Best Radio Station For Music '98

Best Radio Station For Music

KFMA-FM, 92.1

READERS' PICK: Tucson's home for mainstream new rock is KFMA, playing 40 minutes of uninterrupted music at a stretch. Creed, Fastball, Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam--you might have called it Alternative before, but now it's mainstream and available at the touch of a dial, often with three consecutive songs by your same favorite bands. In the morning, Ted Stryker plays lots of requests and has this positive slacker-thing going. For those of you stuck in the recent past, the noon hour weekdays is all-request Eat Your Eighties with Chuck Roast, who's even more laid-back than Stryker. They give away tickets to shows and have contests for festival trips. The Sunday night ska-punk-swing-rockabilly show is rumored to be popular among Tucson teens, but we older folks stick mostly to the daytime nostalgia programming. You'll have to explore the night programming yerownselves. KFMA is where the rock-majority rules in a laid-back format, and they give away loads of free stuff...what more can you ask of local radio?

READERS' POLL RUNNER-UP: Eclectic doesn't even begin to describe the range of this community radio station. You're likely to hear anything here: old-timey bluegrass, rap, blues, trance, zydeco or bootleg Dead concerts. What station in their right mind would program a Celtic show followed by a reggae hour? But that's the point: KXCI-FM, 91.3, wants to expand your consciousness, not narrow it, through the magic of radio. Although it sometimes helps to have attention-deficit disorder to smooth the transitions, KXCI always challenges you to keep up, following the assumption you're as intelligent and diversity-loving as they are. They also have unabashedly opinionated talk segments like "Native Caller," "A View from Slightly Off Center" and "Out Loud," to name a few. KXCI has consistently been the local music scene's biggest booster, with an almost religious fervor in its promotion of home-grown artists. While commercial stations work themselves into tighter and tighter demographic niches, KXCI wallows in a little bit of everything. Tune in and support electronic anarchy.

1997 Winner: KFMA--92.1 FM
1996 Winner: KFMA--92.1 FM
1995 Winner: KXCI--91.3 FM