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Tuesday, April 13, 2010

First Listen: Glee FM

First Listen: Glee FM

There have been online-only radio stations devoted to TV shows before; (“Life On Mars” offered its version of “1973 Radio” last year). But on Monday, Canada’s Global TV took over a terrestrial station, CIRR (103.9 Proud FM), Toronto’s gay-themed pop/dance outlet, rebranding it “Glee FM” to tie in with the show’s second suite of new episodes starting Tuesday night (13).

So what did an “All-Glee” format sound like? Regular morning team Patrick & Deb, whose discussion topics included bullying in high-school and which “Glee” character are you? (There were mostly Rachels.) There was a visit from the York University a capella group (which sang “Don’t Stop Believing”) and a phoner from the show’s co-creator Brad Falchuk. There were callers qualified to win a trip to see “Glee” in New York. The net effect though was still a day of Proud FM devoted to “Glee,” as opposed to the radio experience that the show’s creators might have come up with on their own.

One challenge to doing an “All-Glee” format on Canadian radio? There are no more than 3-½ songs from the existing “Glee” catalog that might qualify as Canadian content, and one is “(You’re) Having My Baby.” So the format was actually Glee soundtrack music plus unrelated Cancon. It would have been fun to hear what non-Glee music the station would have interspersed on its own volition otherwise, although there was an occasional Lady Gaga or Adam Lambert song and the station’s regular, but still appropriate “Mandatory Madonna” feature.

In any event, it was more “Glee” music in one day than American radio may have managed to accommodate during the show’s entire first run of episodes. Here’s the first 80 minutes or so of the station on Monday (12) at 6 a.m.:

• Glee Cast, “Somebody To Love

• Glee Cast, “Hate On Me”

• Max Vangeli & Digital Lab, “Your Love”

• Glee Cast, “Alone”

• Faber Drive, “G-Get Up & Dance”

• Glee Cast, “Take A Bow”

• Jane Child, “Don’t Want To Fall In Love”

• Glee Cast, “Bust A Move”

• Glee Cast, “You Keep Me Hanging On”

• Nelly Furtado, “Powerless (Say What You Want)”

• Glee Cast, “Sweet Caroline”

• K-Os, “Crabbuckit”

• Glee Cast, “Taking Chances”

• Laura Pausini, “Surrender”

• Glee Cast, “Bootylicious”

• Glee Cast, “Can’t Fight This Feeling”

• Adam Lambert, “Whatya Want From Me”

• Glee Cast, “Bust Your Windows”

About the Writer

Display Sean Ross, one of the radio and music industry’s most widely respected writers and programming analysts, is the author of the newsletter Ross On Radio, an extension of his long-running column of the same name.

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