97.3FM

My mum loves this. This station is good if you want family friendly songs from the olden days. Wish it was a bit more hip.

97.3 FM’s target market is women in their mid 20’s to mid 30’s. Which is me! I don’t love them all the time (and sometimes they have that annoying tiles advertising guy that makes me change the channel instantly) however they play a good mix of new pop and 80’s /​90’s music with a pleasing lack of metal or hardcore.
I have to boo a little for them continuing to flog the dead horse that is ‘3PM Pickup’. I love Chrissie Swan, but that show is self indulgent twaddle. Tune in to any of their other shows (such as their award winning breakfast show with Robin, Terry & Bob) instead.

If you ever find yourself driving a car full of late twenty/​early thirty something ladies with a penchant for quality dance music from the eighties and early nineties, this is the radio station to tune your car radio for. It’s also useful if you need a high-​energy soundtrack to keep you alert and awake on a long drive.
My girlfriend always tunes into 97.3FM of a Friday and Saturday-​night drive, being turned off by the other stations dubstep and house music dominated party mixes, which are perhaps a bit ‘young’ for us children of the Expo 88 generation (s**t I’m beginning to feel old). That said, she’s the kind of girl who will happily go to the trashiest pub or club in town with her friends and dance to Daryl Braithwaite’s ‘Horses’, ‘Time of my Life’ (from the famous ‘Dirty Dancing’ soundtrack) and possibly the Grease megamix, with only the slightest hint of irony…

I was recently reading a list called «What White People Like» and 80s music was there. The reason? Apparently, White People like to listen to 80’s music because it was the last time «real music» of the pop variety existed.
But I doubt this is 97.3FM’s reason for focusing on 80s music. Instead, I think this station’s 80’s music fans are more of the unabashed «I love Madonna» type. No one’s trying to be hip here by claiming the 80’s were cool. (Come on.) 97.3FM is for people probably of my generation who list Dirty Dancing as their favourite movie, and like to car-​jack their friends.
This was evidenced when my friend (who for lack of privacy reasons I’ll call by her real name, Julie) texted me every time Wilson Phillip’s «Hold On» came on the station, which happened to be very often. As the «97.3!!! Turn it on now!» texts built up over the years, I was recently offered a car lift from Seemingly Nice But Secretly Sadistic Julie. When I got in, 97.3FM wasn’t playing as usual, so all signs pointed to good. Then she locked the car doors, went for the DVD player and forced me to listen to «Hold On» for its entire duration. I consider this car-​jacking. (Still love you, JJ. But I’m going to Mambo No. 5* your arse at the next available opportunity.)
Speaking of which, Mambo No. 5 by Lou Bega is something you might hear on 97.3 FM when the younger crowd is listening (night time). At other times I’ve heard «Endless Love» by Lionel Ritchie and Diana Ross, as there seems to be Golden Oldies hours. (97.3FM is like the FM equivalent of AM radio.) There’s also I admit some decent 80s music (so says the Clichéd White Girl), such as stuff by Duran Duran, the Go Go’s, Texas and Robert Palmer. Come on, some of his stuff was OK.
*Julie’s least favourite song of all time and consistently nominated highly amongst Songs That Get Stuck In Your Head lists across the internet. «A little bit of Monica in my life, a little bit of Erica by my side…»