Star 94 has dropped its six-year dance-pop and hip-hop lean and returned to a more traditional adult pop format, now sounding much closer to longtime ratings leader B98.5.
The change follows last month’s cancellation of the Kevin & Taylor morning show. Star’s new slogan is “Atlanta’s best variety of the ’90s to today,” replacing “Atlanta’s upbeat variety.” B98.5’s slogan is “‘90s, 2K and today.”
B98.5 has outrated Star for much of the past 20 years. Star still plays current tracks by artists such as sombr, Ella Langley, Djo and Olivia Dean. It has also brought back 1990s and early-2000s hits it once played in heavy rotation, including Natalie Imbruglia’s “Torn” (1997), Aerosmith’s “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” (1998) and Vanessa Carlton’s “A Thousand Miles” (2002).
Harder hip-hop titles the station was still airing days ago—T-Pain’s “Buy U a Drank (Shawty Snappin’),” Baby Bash’s “Suga Suga” and Snoop Dogg’s “Drop It Like It’s Hot”—are largely gone.