Formerly, Sonic Sessions were held (but not commercialized) by
the city's
real alternative station, 103.9
WDRE. When 'DRE died along with
alternative music in the mid-1990s, most of the
DJs and staff fled to their competitor
Y-100, and brought such features as Sonic Sessions with them. Despite the slight makeover, Y-100 doesn't have a quarter of the
street cred or
hometown feel of 'DRE, and neither do it's mass-consumer sonic sessions. This is a corporate station that played
Hootie and the Blowfish a couple years ago, trying to reinvent itself as
cool by playing whiny white-boy music and
pop-punk.
94.1 WYSP further stole the idea of private sessions, and I'm sure similar radio promos now occur across the country. Like radio stations' summer and Christmas concerts, these sell-out events are a good way to see which bands are the biggest tools of their record companies.