Fight for Your Right to Unpopular Opinions

Unpopular opinions. We all have them. Whether it’s an opinion about the greatest basketball player ever (Jordan, of course) or how to properly load a dishwasher (plates on bottom, cups and bowls on top, and wash my non-stick pans by hand), someone will probably disagree with you.  

I was reminiscing recently about the demise of 95 Rock - a truly great radio station. I was honored to be a part of Chuck Williams’s team of mischievous misfits for a brief period and, even as my career moved me over to HD98.3, I still felt like a was a part of the 95 Rock family. It made losing that station even tougher.  

Losing 95 Rock meant more than just a different sound on that frequency. It meant some people wouldn’t work with us anymore. It meant parting ways with friends. It also meant that rock fans had to look elsewhere for their guitar-thrashing, head-banging, rock-fist-raising fix.  

As a fan of rock music, I found it devastating.  

Then came the new radio station: HOT 97.7 (then HOT95.5), with a throwback hip-hop and R&B format. The emptiness I felt after having my rock fan heart ripped out was now counter-acted by a feeling of finally being seen. No one was playing this kind of hip-hop, my kind of hip-hop, on the radio in Augusta.  

I’ve always been a fan of all kinds of music, from John Williams to Johnny Cash, from Madonna to Metallica. I love music. It’s the reason I got into radio. But, above all else, from the moment I heard the “WHOO! YEAH!” on Rob Base’s “It Takes Two,” I have been a hip-hop kid. 

So, in that moment, I was a very conflicted man. 

I was also a man burdened with an unpopular opinion. 

I remember posting on social media about it, making the mistake of mixing my expressions of remorse, condolence, and disappointment for the now-extinct 95 Rock with my excitement and desire to promote the station that was finally playing my music. 

That didn’t go over very well.  

I was skewered by friends and strangers alike. I learned new insults from the heartbroken rock fans who weren’t nearly as cool with the new station as I was. Rock fans are nothing if not passionate and to say that my opinion was unpopular would be an understatement. 

However, it was my opinion then and still is today – unpopular as it was and, perhaps, still remains. I know there are still a lot of people who don’t agree with it. That is the nature and, dare I say, beauty of opinions. If we all shared the same opinion, life would be pretty boring.  

It is, of course, an impasse without solution. Sure, there are some opinions that may be better left unsaid, but healthy debate is one of the greatest things in life - in my opinion.  

I recently got into a debate with DJ Knightmare over who’s life work is more valuable to the world: Tom Hanks’s movies or the Rolling Stones’s musical library. A totally meaningless debate, however, one we each had strong opinions about and had fun expressing 

Chances are, we all have an opinion about something that will spark some big feelings. The hot takes. The controversial beliefs. Maybe the magic is in knowing which ones are worth the argument and which ones to just let be. Is Jordan really better than LeBron? Who knows. They’re both great in their own right - but it sure is fun to debate.  

One thing to take note of however: I’m absolutely right about the dishwasher thing.  

Fight me.