The Death of the Buzz

After 16 years, WPBZ, The Buzz 103.1 FM is dead.

Let me start by saying this is not an obituary for a highly-acclaimed, local alternative rock station. This is not the end of a beloved mouthpiece by and for the forward-thinking, knuckle-scraping, sonic rebels at the cutting edge of everything angry, bad-ass and loud.

In no way did The Buzz push any envelopes, stick it to any Men or rock anybody's faces off, unless you were the type of person to disagree, thinking these things could be achieved by listening (incessantly, relentlessly, 24 hours-a-day) to songs by

30 Seconds to Mars,

Breaking Benjamin,

Three Days Grace,
Puddle of Mudd,
Rise Against,
Papa Roach,
Shinedown,
Daughtry
and Nickelback.

The Buzz always played the same corporate bullshit you could hear everywhere and anywhere else. They were not great; they were an annoyance, and after sixteen years somebody decided they should peddle their drivel on the Internet, like the rest of us.

For me, the news that came on Monday was welcome, vindication for all the years of listening to moronic songs I was mature enough to despise when I was fourteen, let alone twenty-five. Fitting closure for all those times in the past, driving home from Suncoast High School, when I had to say to myself through gritted teeth, "Oh, I guess we'll just listen to that Finger Eleven song again. OK."

Gently they did go into that good night. Rage they did not against the dying of the light.

But there are some people who want them back, and they are just as entitled to their opinion as I am to mine.

The truly great moments in their broadcast history came only a few times a year when upon me they would bestow a Buzz Recycled Weekend. Those weekends, when for three days I was granted music that brought me back to the days in the passenger seat of my father's car, were great for people like me, who, for just once in a while, wanted to hear songs by

Jimmie's Chicken Shack,

The Butthole Surfers,
Alien Ant Farm,
The Mars Volta,
The Breeders,
The Deftones,
Fiona Apple,
Radiohead,
The Pixies,
Metallica,

Placebo,
Primus,
R.E.M.,
Beck
and 311.

If these weekends were only more frequent (hell, if they only kept the songs in the regular rotation) maybe the Buzz would have kept listeners like me, and in doing so, kept their place on our dials.