Brisbanes Best Mix 97.3fm

This one came up in the 80's genre again, and I have to admit that I choose it based upon a little twinge of nostalgia for the the 2 months I spent in the Queensland city of Brisbane.

The first time I listened to this station was a bit like listening to a 'Best of the 80's soft rock' compilation, and I loved every minute of it. The Australians to seem to like a bit of the rock and this station delivers it. Over time there is a bit more of a balance in the tracks but still heavily 80's orientated. The closest to current music I heard was an interview with James Blunt, based on the fact he was touring out there. I'd add one small note on this station, much as I liked it, there's only so much classic 80's a person can take. I can't see this station being one for day after day listening, there's GOT to be a lot of repeats (I've not heard it yet, but they've got to play Khe Sanh at least once a day surely...)

97.3fm is a local commercial radio station and as such has all the normal features such as news, DJ's, traffic etc. This in itself is quite an oddity, as I was getting ready for my commute to work I was listening to problems on the roads in Brisbane... One thing I haven't noticed is the adverts, maybe I'm just not tuned in to them like the UK ones, but if they're there they blend into the general DJ chatter. Again it could be the change from the norm, but I quite liked the Australian accent to the voices and the list of unusual place names.

The stream is pretty low quality, but one advantage to this is very few drops in the connection,in fact I can't recall one pause while it rebuffers the stream.

The 97.3fm website is a fairly typical commercial station site but really focuses on the lifestyle of it's listener rather than its choosen music. The site doesn't really add anything to the listening experience, unlike something like the UK's XFM station which realy trys to dig behind the music. But there are plenty of links to listen to the station, request songs and access podcasts /mp3's of the stations popular shows, all paid for by a number of banner adverts across the site.

A hard one to rate, I really enjoy the music they play but I can see it getting tired all too quickly (like a great song overplayed until it becomes irritating). All the same, I give this a TUNE-IN rating.