Chicago is a radio town. Always has been. But if you grew up there or spent any time driving down the Dan Ryan with the windows down between 1977 and 2018, there was one specific frequency that defined the city's pulse. 97.9 FM The Loop wasn't just a classic rock station. It was a cultural institution that survived ownership changes, the rise of the iPod, and the eventual death of terrestrial radio's golden age.
WLUP-FM. That’s the call sign. It honestly feels weird to even call it that because nobody did. It was just "The Loop."
When the station finally signed off for the last time on March 10, 2018, it felt like a death in the family for millions of listeners. The final song? "You Better You Bet" by The Who. It was a fitting, slightly defiant end for a station that built its reputation on being louder, weirder, and more "Chicago" than anything else on the dial. But how did a single frequency manage to dominate the ratings and the cultural conversation for over forty years?
The Rise of a Counter-Culture Giant
The Loop didn't start as a powerhouse. In the early 70s, 97.9 was actually a beautiful music station (basically elevator music). Boring. Then, in '77, everything changed. Under the guidance of Lee Abrams and the "Superstars" format, the station pivoted to Album Oriented Rock (AOR).
It was a gamble.
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At the time, radio was very segmented. You had your pop stations and your niche stuff. The Loop came in and decided to be the voice of the blue-collar worker and the rebellious teenager simultaneously. They hired a 21-year-old kid named Steve Dahl who had just been fired from WDAI when they switched to disco.
Dahl was angry. He was funny. He was exactly what Chicago wanted.
Alongside his partner Garry Meier, Dahl turned 97.9 FM The Loop into a destination for "event radio." They didn't just play Led Zeppelin; they talked about their lives, mocked the news, and staged stunts that would probably get a station sued into oblivion today. The most famous, of course, was Disco Demolition Night at Comiskey Park in 1979. It was a WLUP promotion that literally caused a riot and forced the White Sox to forfeit a game.
Whether you think that night was a fun rock-and-roll stunt or a problematic cultural flashpoint, you can't deny its impact. It put the station on the national map.
Personality Over Playlist
Most stations today are programmed by algorithms or some consultant in a high-rise three states away. The Loop was different because it leaned into personalities. You had the "Skywayman" reporting traffic. You had Kevin Matthews and his cast of characters like Jim Shorts.
Then there was Jonathan Brandmeier. "Johnny B."
Brandmeier moved from Milwaukee to Chicago in 1983 and took over the morning slot. He was a force of nature. His show was chaotic, musical, and incredibly interactive. He’d call random people in the phone book. He’d do live bits from the street. He turned 97.9 FM The Loop into a playground. While other stations were sticking to rigid "30 minutes of non-stop hits" formats, WLUP let its DJs talk. Sometimes they talked for twenty minutes straight without a song.
And the listeners loved it.
The station's ability to pivot between "The Loop" (the rock station) and "The Loop AM" (a talk-heavy experiment) showed they weren't afraid to fail. They eventually brought in legends like Danny Bonaduce and even experimented with a more modern rock sound in the 90s to compete with the burgeoning "Alternative" scene.
Why the Branding Stuck
You probably remember the logo. The black box with the bold, white "97.9" and the word "LOOP" in red. It was everywhere. It was on t-shirts, bumper stickers, and those iconic TV commercials featuring the "Loop Girl."
The branding worked because it wasn't trying to be sophisticated. It was gritty. It felt like the L-train. It felt like a dive bar in Beverly or a garage on the Northwest Side. When people wore a Loop shirt, they were signaling that they were part of a specific tribe. They liked their rock loud and their humor slightly inappropriate.
The Long Fade and the K-Love Pivot
Radio is a tough business. By the mid-2000s, the landscape was shifting. The internet happened. YouTube happened. Spotify happened.
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The Loop went through a series of owners—Evergreen, AMFM, Emmis, Merlin Media, and finally Cumulus. Every time a new corporate entity took over, a little bit of the soul got chipped away. They tried to keep the classic rock flame alive, but the advertising dollars were migrating elsewhere.
In early 2018, the news broke that Cumulus Media was selling the station to Educational Media Foundation (EMF) for $21.5 million.
The catch? EMF is a non-profit that operates the "K-Love" contemporary Christian music network.
The irony wasn't lost on anyone. The station that hosted Steve Dahl’s "Insanity" and Brandmeier’s wild antics was becoming a religious broadcaster. On that final Saturday in March, the DJs were given a chance to say goodbye. It was an emotional day for the city. Thousands of people tuned in to hear the final hours of a legend.
The transition happened at exactly midnight. One minute, you had the heavy guitar riffs of The Who, and the next, it was a soft-spoken intro to a worship song. The Loop was dead.
The Legacy That Refuses to Die
Even though 97.9 is now K-Love, the "Loop" brand hasn't completely vanished from the consciousness of Chicago. You can still find "Loop" playlists on Spotify that try to recreate the 1988 drive-time experience. Steve Dahl and many of the other former personalities moved into the podcasting world, proving that the audience followed the people, not just the frequency.
There was a brief attempt to revive the brand on a different frequency or online, but it never really caught fire the same way. The magic of 97.9 FM The Loop was tied to a specific time and place. It was the pre-smartphone era where the radio was the primary social media. It was how you knew what was happening in the city.
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People often ask why a station with such high brand recognition couldn't survive. It’s simple: the business model of terrestrial radio couldn't support the high salaries of big personalities while the audience was being fragmented by a million digital options. It’s a story we’ve seen in every city, but in Chicago, it hurt more because WLUP was so deeply woven into the city's identity.
Practical Ways to Relive the Era
If you're feeling nostalgic, you don't have to just settle for memories. There are actually some decent ways to find that old Chicago radio vibe today:
- The Archives: Websites like Radio-Info and various YouTube channels have thousands of hours of airchecks. Listening to a Brandmeier show from 1985 is a surreal time capsule.
- Podcasting: Steve Dahl remains active in the podcasting space. His show still carries that same conversational, slightly cynical Chicago edge that he brought to 97.9 decades ago.
- WDRV (The Drive): While it's not The Loop, 97.1 The Drive has effectively inherited the classic rock crown in Chicago. They even hired some former Loop staffers over the years.
- The Merchandise: You can still find vintage Loop shirts on eBay and Etsy. They are surprisingly popular with people who weren't even born when the station was at its peak.
Moving Forward Without the Black and Red
Honestly, the loss of The Loop was the end of an era for local media. We live in a world of nationalized content now. Everything is polished. Everything is safe.
The Loop was never safe.
It was a station that let its hosts get in trouble. It was a station that reflected the weather, the sports teams, and the frustrations of the people living in the 312 and 708 area codes. If you want to keep that spirit alive, the best thing you can do is support local, independent media. Seek out the podcasts and small stations that are actually talking about Chicago, not just playing a syndicated loop from a studio in Los Angeles.
The frequency might have changed, but the "Loop" state of mind—that loud, proud, slightly obnoxious Chicago attitude—isn't going anywhere. It just doesn't live on 97.9 anymore.
To keep the history alive, look for the "Chicago Radio" exhibits at local museums or dive into the digital archives of the Museum of Broadcast Communications. They often have physical artifacts from the WLUP studios that remind us how big this thing really was. Support the personalities who made the station great by checking out their current projects; most are just a Google search away and still have plenty to say about the city they helped define.