Holy crap, 95.5...

[MWmetalhead]

Someone evidently hit the play @ 1.5x button on the audio processing software.

I don't mind slightly sped up music, but the recently implemented settings at WKQI speed up the music to almost cartoonish sounding levels.

What is this - 1990 all over again?

[Mega Hertz]

No. Because CHR/Top 40 was listenable in 1990.

[MWmetalhead]

Tons of stations sped up the music back then...lasted well into the 90s. Wasn't just CHR, either. Was a common practice at active rock and alternative.

[Realist]

Tons of stations sped up the music back then...lasted well into the 90s. Wasn't just CHR, either. Was a common practice at active rock and alternative.

It was weird to hear Metallica’s Enter Sandman sped up on Top 40 radio when it came out…

[Mega Hertz]

No, not the speed. The actual music. Even if it was Milli Vanilli

[MWmetalhead]

Got it. You are right; I loved listening to top 40 back then, too.

[Mega Hertz]

I was an avid DRQ listener, aside from the boy bands and vanilla stuff in its later years. I haven't always been anti CHR. Just since 2012 or so.

[billmich88888]

I was an avid DRQ listener, aside from the boy bands and vanilla stuff in its later years. I haven't always been anti CHR. Just since 2012 or so.

what age were you in 2012?

[Mega Hertz]

I was an avid DRQ listener, aside from the boy bands and vanilla stuff in its later years. I haven't always been anti CHR. Just since 2012 or so.

what age were you in 2012?

46

[billmich88888]

i was 44 in 2012 - the age thing alone drifts you away from CHR at some point. I have a daughter that was ~10 at the time, so that kept me in the game for a few more year, but now i am definitely OUT

[ChrisWL1980]

I place my final defection from the CHR format at 2002, although in retrospect I think my defection began two or so years earlier as I started getting more into oldies and standards. The rise of 50 Cent and Ja Rule just cemented it.
Actually I'm surprised at how few songs from 1997 onward hold up for me. If it wasn't hip-hop I never liked even then or teen pop I no longer relate to, it was modern AC material (Alanis, No Doubt, Third Eye Blind) I liked at the time but got so played into the ground I can't stand to hear those songs anymore.

I'm not sure if they still do, but Star 105.7 in Grand Rapids - an AC station - has a history of speeding up songs.

[Mega Hertz]

I could still find the occasional song here and there on CHR up until 2014 or so. Shake It Off and Rude are two that come to mind. After that, I don't even bother.

And for the record, I'm 36. Studies show that most men age out of CHR roughly between 25 and 28. But there used to be some variety on CHR. Even if you didn't like the song playing, the next one could be different. Since the rise of trap beats and synth stabs, there just isn't anything there.

[SteveS]

I place my final defection from the CHR format at 2002, although in retrospect I think my defection began two or so years earlier as I started getting more into oldies and standards. The rise of 50 Cent and Ja Rule just cemented it.

So comical remembering that I actually bought Ja Rule's "Pain Is Love" CD at that time. I was never a rap fan but I guess I went through a phase for a short time back then.

[bmw]

I just measured a song played against a youtube copy.

I got a 3.2% speed increase.

WIOG back in the mid-2000s was faster. I've clocked them at over 4 percent before.

Regardless, 3.2% is too much. Thankfully this practice has been abandoned by MOST stations. Not sure why WKQI went back to doing this.

[Willie108]

The theory is, if you speed up songs, you make them sound brighter. And you can cram in more commercials in the hour.