Updated Further: WCBS-FM A to Z - not quite

Someone at WCBS-FM radio (101.1 FM in New York City or wcbsfm.com), we don't know who, had a great idea: Play every song in the WCBS-FM library, from A to Z.

Great idea, as listeners finally get to hear more than just the small subset of songs the station keeps otherwise playing. Sadly, however, a lot of songs are missing.

Here is just a very small sampling of some songs that were and were not played:

Played	Not Played
Love Me Tender - Elvis Presley	Love Me - Elvis Presley
	Loving You - Elvis Presley
Stay - Maurice Williams & the Zodiacs	Stay - 4 Seasons
	Stay - Jackson Browne
Little Darlin' - Diamonds	Little Darlin' - Gladiolas (Maurice Williams)
Silhouettes - Herman's Hermits	Silhouettes - Rays
Sukiyaki - A Taste of Honey	Sukiyaki - Kyu Sakamoto
	Soon - 4 Seasons
Alone - Heart	Alone - 4 Seaons
	Bye Bye Baby - 4 Seasons
Could It Be Magic - Barry Manilow	Could This Be Magic - Dubs
Leader of the Pack - Shangri-Las	Leader of the Laundromat - Detergents
Gloria - Shadows of Night	Gloria - Cadillacs
Gloria - Them	Gloria - The Passions
Gloria - Laura Branigan
Crying in the Chapel - Elvis Presley	Cry - Johnny Ray
Do You Wanna Dance? - Beach Boys	Do You Wanna Dance? - Bobby Freeman
Do You Want to Dance? - Bette Midler
	Daddy's Home - Shep & The Limelites
Ain't That A Shame - Fats Domino	Ain't That A Shame - 4 Seasons
	Ain't That A Shame - Pat Boone
Baby Blue - Badfinger	Baby Blue - Echoes
	Everybody Loves Somebody Sometime - Dean Martin
Go Away Little Girl - Happenings	Go Away Little Girl - Steve Lawrence
Go Away Little Girl - Donny Osmond
	I Feel Fine - Beatles
	Chances Are - Johnny Mathis
	It's Not For Me To Say - Johnny Mathis
Love Potion Number Nine - Searchers	Love Potion Number Nine - Clovers
Surfer Girl - Beach Boys	Surf City - Jan & Dean
Surfin' Bird - Trashmen
Surfin' U.S.A. - Beach Boys
In The Still of the Night - Five Satins	Tonite Tonite - Mello-Kings

(Just added the last item above - They played "In the Still of the Night" but not "Tonite Tonite", and the latter was glaringly missing while Norm N. Nite was on the air broadcasting from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame! Why didn't he say something or just make sure it got played?)

The order of a number of songs is totally illogical. Sometimes a song beginning with "The" fell into the letter of the next word, and others fell into the "The" section of the survey. Same for song titles beginning with "A" or "I". Very strange and confusing.

Although lots of other great songs from the 50's through the 80's were played, many great songs are missing. Instead, some never heard of before (and hopefully never to be heard again) songs got airplay. I can't even tell you the names of the really bad non-hit songs that got played, because I never heard them before and no one ever said what was played. (Perhaps the DJs were just too embarrassed to tell us.)

So while this was a great idea, the claim by the station that they are playing everything in their library is clearly not quite accurate, because the real WCBS-FM would have played the songs listed above and the many, many, more that have been skipped along the way. It is hard to figure out the logic of the choices, as many singles were excluded, but a number of album-only songs got played. I hope they do this again -- and next time really play ALL the music from A-Z from the 1950's through the 1980's.

As I've pointed out in previous articles, there would be no rock & roll of the 60's, 70's or 80's without the rock & roll of the 50's.

Richard Kuper
The Op Ed Page
http://TheOpEdPage.com

Public Transportion in NYC Getting Worse

Every time the fares go up, the service goes down. This seems to be a recurrent theme whenever the transit services raise their fares.

Several months ago, the fares on the NYC subway system went up. So did the fares on the PATH trains. Travel on both of these services, and transferring from one to the other, have since gotten much worse.

On the subways, for example, the E and F trains in Queens now run slower than ever during rush hour, and there are regular mishaps. The local R and V service actually sometimes get from Continental Avenue to Queens Plaza faster than the E express. Audio announcements are fewer and are again at times unintelligible.

The PATH trains have had many many delays and mishaps since the fare increase.

The transfer between the two services at the World Trade Center location is a story unto itself. The underground transfer between the E, for example, and the PATH train survived the 9/11 attack but was clearly in need of some repairs as there were constant water leaks. So PATH built a new entrance and closed down the old one. But no one at the MTA/NYC Transit or at PATH seemed to have thought the changes through very well. On day one several months ago, shortly after the fare increases, the old entrances that could accommodate the hundreds of thousands of commuters transferring between the two services or simply entering or leaving the World Trade Center area, were closed. Instead, these hundreds of thousands of commuters were directed to/from the E train via one (yes I said one) very narrow staircase that could barely accommodate one way commuter traffic, let alone two-way for hundreds of thousands of commuters. Then, all who were going toward the PATH train or toward the subway (opposite directions) were relegated to one enclosed street where construction was also going on, to get to/from the E and the PATH. What a nightmare.

The folks in charge of the MTA, NYC Transit, and PATH should all be replaced with people who think ahead and look at the ramifications of changes and then fix the problems before they become problems. And the poor service on both systems clearly do not warrant the fare increases already imposed or those threatened to be imposed in the near future. Instead, fares should be rolled back and a thorough investigation launched into the clear mismanagement of both services. Where is all that fare money going? It clearly isn't going into service improvements or to people with common sense to avoid such nightmares. And where has the asleep-at-the-wheel press been? I haven't seen any articles about this.

Richard Kuper
The Op Ed Page
http://TheOpEdPage.com