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Man On The Side

Jam 88.3 and the New Music Alternative: 12 years of relevant radio


It’s easy to dismiss radio when your primary music source is your phone or iPod, and you're connected to the internet nearly 24/7.

But I’m not ready to let go of Guglielmo Marconi’s invention just yet. And the primary reason is radio station Jam 88.3, which is celebrating 12 years on the air this month.

A quick scan of the FM dial in Metro Manila would reveal an almost disorienting sameness in options and format: programming and music selection directed mostly at the lower end of the socio-economic bracket. This makes sense, of course, given that this segment constitutes the vast majority of listeners in the capital.

This is why Jam 88.3 is remarkable. It’s not because it’s positioned more towards the supposedly sosyal and pa-sosyal, but more because it provides an alternative to the other stations with practically similar identities. Their tagline then couldn’t be more apt: New Music Alternative.

Jam 88.3 was once called Citylite 88.3, which played contemporary jazz. Today its playlist consists mostly of tracks in the alternative and indie pop-rock genre. “Alternative” in this sense is left-of-the-middle songs from artists that may or may not have made it big in the mainstream. It’s perhaps the closest thing listeners have to an heir to the late, lamented NU107, whose speakers fell silent in 2011.

It is sometimes difficult to identify what exactly Jam is looking for, given the songs on its regular playlist could just as easily be from someone as popular as John Mayer or Linkin Park, as from some little-known independent artist like The Arcs, Hunter Hunted, Tennis, or A Silent Film.

The playlist is an “alternative” to traditional Top 40 or those loud stations that broadcast in the vernacular. They have “mainstream” artists on rotation, sure, but the vast majority is granted a voice here in this country only through their speakers. For every Fall Out Boy or Avril Lavigne, they have Belle and Sebastian, The Raconteurs, Phoenix, Surfer Blood and many others of the same ilk.

Jam’s edge is that they follow their own beat when it comes to what songs they’ll play. It’s definitely not one dictated by Billboard’s Hot 100. Some might posit that the station possesses a certain “snob” appeal, a hipster nose-up-at-you attitude—no Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande or One Direction songs here.

But that would be inaccurate. This is more about specialization and niche targeting rather than arrogance or a better-than-everyone-else attitude.

If all the FM radio stations were all part of the same family, Jam would be the hip, tattooed, jeans-and-t-shirt-wearing, slightly off-kilter brother of Wave 89.1, Magic 89.9, and 99.5 Play FM (which, incidentally are all owned and controlled by the same entity).

And in case you think the station favors supposedly foreign “hipster” artists over local talent, Jam is actually a champion of OPM through shows like Fresh Filter, which plays all-new tracks from some of the country’s best undiscovered talents.

They also have a full-day’s worth of programming every Sunday devoted exclusively to Pinoy alternative. My favorite though is what comes after. “Different Sunday” plays everything except the traditional studio-recorded version of a song. This means covers or a re-interpretation from the same artist of his or her own song, a live or acoustic version from the original artist, or any other incarnation of a song that fits into the Jam 88.3 template. It’s the best six hours of radio programming in the country.

All this makes Jam 88.3 an essential part of my musical diet, and reason enough to celebrate twelve years of existence, despite the odds. — DVM, GMA News


Paul John Caña is a magazine writer and live music geek. He is also co-founder of libreto.org, an online collective of writers and artists. Email him at pjcana@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter and Instagram @pauljohncana.

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