The Infinite Dial

It's pretty standard for Europe's major broadcasters to offer a suite of Web-only brand extensions these days. There's typically an all-'80s station, a lounge or chillout format, an R&B/hip-hop format of some sort, an indie rock channel, and a Top 40 channel that is younger or newer than the more adult mix that usually constitutes Top 40 in Europe.

But Frankfurt's heritage Hot AC FFH has something unusual in its tier of Web-channels, a format it's billing as "FFH Jack FM." While the first announced international Jack FM client in Oxford, U.K., gears up for its launch later this year, it's interesting to hear it with German liners (but no apparent attempt to re-create the tenor of Jack-FM voice Howard Cogan) and the English-language slogan, "We play what we want."

The website copy for FFH Jack FM promises, "The craziest radio station of all times! At FFH Jack FM, we're playing Eminem after Simon & Garfunkel and Nirvana before Elton John. No rules, just good music. Happy 'radio-anarchie' [their spelling] rules, because we play what we want."

The irony, of course, is that it wasn't that long ago that a lot of European radio sounded like Bob- or Jack-FM. And in a smaller market, it's still quite possible to hear Abba and Fort Minor on the same station. Here's FFH Jack FM on Monday afternoon:

R.E.M., "Drive"
Abba, "Thank You For The Music"
Seed, "Aufstehn" (bilingualreggae pop)
Rainbirds, "Blueprint"
Mario, "Let Me Love You" (not a song you'd hear on most U.S. versions of the format)
Church, "Under The Milky Way"
Fort Minor, "Believe Me"
Slade, "Far Far Away"
Billy Joel, "Leningrad"
Mika, "Grace Kelly"
Yes, "Owner Of A Lonely Heart"
Modjo, "Lady (Hear Me Tonight)"
Desireless, "Voyage Voyage" (bilingual Eurodisco)
Frank Zappa, "Bobby Brown" (early '80s Zappa song that became a hit in non-English speaking European countries where the R-rated lyrics weren't quite as widely understood)