I'm rating it a star higher than I'm realistically inclined to, in the interests of fairness,…read morebecause it's been several years since I've listened to the station, and one's taste in music tends to be subjective anyway. Certainly mine is. As a youngster with limited finances (my parents were loving, generous people, but they grew up in the Depression, so the "allowance" I received didn't exactly allow a lot of "discretionary spending," and when I started working at 13 years of age...delivering newspapers...my salary was...how shall I put it?...a little less than "bountiful" and a little more like "anemic"), I tended to be rigid when it came to music. If I liked that Stooges album, or Alice Cooper, the next time I accumulated some "mad money," I'd most likely buy another Stooges album, or Alice Cooper, rather than take a chance on expanding my knowledge/taste in music and buying something I was unfamiliar with. My opinions became fixed. I thought country music was horrible and horribly boring. Billie Holiday and Miles Davis were tedious and not nearly as exciting as the Sex Pistols or T-Rex. I was an opinionated young a#shole spouting off from a position of ignorance, with the inflexibility and self-righteousness common to many dopey kids and ill-informed louts.
I've matured with the years (although some former friends and ex-girlfriends would, I daresay, disagree with that assessment), and my tastes and appreciation of different musical genres expanded. I listen to Moby Grape, Blue Cheer, Sun Ra, the Johnstons (I think their version of "the Curragh of Kildare" is the definite version, and the most beautiful), Johnny Cash, Love, Bach, the Pogues, Patsy Cline, Os Mutantes, Afro-Pop, Brazilian Bossa-Nova, Bob Dylan, etc. etc. And I still like the Stooges and the Sex Pistols.
Thing is,I've ALWAYS liked at least some "soft rock" too. Even when I was that stubborn, immature jerk whose allowance money would not permit me to buy any surplus records. I liked Jose Feliciano, I liked the Moody Blues, Simon and Garfunkel, I was even willing to suffer through Bread's "Baby I'm A Want You" when that radio standard was played endlessly on what passed for "Easy Listenin'" radio stations in the 1970s.
WMGQ is a different kind of "soft rock."
With WMGQ, I was a captive audience. I had no choice but to listen. I was working at an office in nearby Piscataway, and WMGQ was the only station where we could get reception. We were a 24 by 7 office and that radio was on all the time. And they played the same limited number of soft hits...all..the..time. Adele droning monotonously on with "Someone Like You" was played at least once every...single...hour. And I mean...every...single...hour.
I've never been suicidal in my life...I adhere to the Buddhist philosophy that you don't hurt other people or yourself, ever...but Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" drove me as close to the act as I've ever come in my life. I would have been happier with a 3-minute "hit" of fingernails being dragged across a blackboard. And they played it...every...single...hour, without exception. WMGQ's idea of playing an old-time classic was occasionally playing Roxette's "It Must Have Been Love," which always sounded more like someone skinning a cat alive to me than anything resembling a decent song. At WMGQ, Billy Joel (I am definitely NOT a fan) was presumed to be of the same artistic stature as Bob Dylan and he got played endlessly (his "hard" songs were soft, and his "soft" songs had the same consistency as bland, watery pablum). It got to the point where if they played "Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round The Old Oak Tree," I'd almost cry with a temporary, ecstatic relief, if only for nostalgia's sake. A long way from Iggy's "Search and Destroy," but at that point I was desperate to the point of mental derangement.
It sometimes put me at odds with my co-workers. I'd go up to Lynn (a friend who unfortunately died of cancer a few years later), and beg, "Lynn, can we try and find another station to play?" "There is no other station to play, Ed; you know that already." "Well...how about we just shut it off? Even if only for a little while?" "The other people in the office like it, Ed. It has to stay on." "Lynn, if I have to hear Adele or Daniel Powter one more time..."
At that point, if it had been a movie, Lynn would have grabbed me by the shoulders like Don Corleone and yelled in my face, "Start acting like a man!" But it wasn't a movie, we're friends, and life went on. And WMGQ stayed on.
I no longer work in Piscataway, and I haven't listened to the station in years. If Billy Joel is one of your 20th Century "Musical Gods," or Journey impresses you in the same way the Beatles once impressed their fans and spurred them into a frenzy at Shea Stadium, or Adele's droning voice sends you into a dizzy swoon, this is probably the station you want to listen to.
If they effect you the same distasteful way they do me, continue your progress up (or down) the radio dial.
