Radio stations go online to get Deftones’ latest single before release

18 May 2000

Excited with the newest single ”Change” by the Deftones, one radio station already downloaded the song online late last month and started playing it on air.

Phoenix KEDJ-FM’s programming director Paul Kriegler said he began playing Change in the last weekend of April after downloading it from Napster, the software that allows its users to exchange near-CD-quality MP3 records with each other.

“We got the song off Napster and heard it and instantly fell in love with it, the whole record is genius”, Kriegler said last Tuesday. “We wanted to get it out there; our listeners love the Deftones. We were a little bit ahead of the curve”.

From then on, the rock song has been launched to radios and added to the alternative and rock stations playlists since last week, according to Radio & Records magazine.

Based on the R&R chart this week, Change debuted at #33 after being tallied at #69 from the trade magazine’s 80 test stations. The song entered the chart at #37, as an outcome of spins on 62 from the 72-sampled radio stations.

“Basically that tells me that radio was so excited about it that they played it as soon as they could get their hands on it”, Jim Kerr, R&R alternative editor said of the song's solid debut.

Chris Williams, Atlanta’s WNNX-FM’s music director said the song's preliminary success can be credited to good timing.