Jack FM is a Los Angeles based radio station that is known for “Playing what [they] want…” There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to them playing what they did, neither playing top hits nor taking listener requests. In 2008 Gutherie Lonergan created a project that documented everything they played for an entire year. He did so by creating a web-scraping script which added the information to a database. The data was then compiled into a 5 volume book, a website, and even a Spotify playlist featuring Lonergan’s 77 favorite songs from the list.

The data shows the top artists as well as how many of their songs were played, the top songs with their total plays in the year and their average plays per day, and how many times any given song played down to the exact date and time. The lack of clear methodology for picking songs has made the station’s history fleeting. One cannot go back to the top charts for any given year and get an idea for what might have been playing on Jack FM in that same year. Thus Lonergan’s work has uniquely captured the history of this unusual station.