Rihanna and Kanye West on KSCS? What gives?

It’s not all that unusual to hear a Taylor Swift song on a country station. She got her start in country, after all, before crossing over to pop.

It is unusual to hear Blank Space and We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together, which kind of push the boundaries of what a country song is — from the pop side of the boundary. Yet those two songs got airplay Monday afternoon on KSCS/96.3 FM, which has been a country station since 1973, according to DFW radio-TV historian Mike Shannon’s DFWRetroplex website.

But Taylor Swift is still in the realm of possibilities, especially relative to some other songs that have popped up there in the past couple of days. As first reported Monday by RadioInsight, songs such as Ellie Goulding’s Love Me Like You Do, Avicii and Aloe Blacc’s Wake Me Up (played at 6:22 a.m. Monday, so maybe there’s a double meaning to the title), Capital Cities’ Safe and Sound, OneRepublic’s Counting Stars, and the Rihanna-Kanye West-Paul McCartney collaboration FourFiveseconds have found spots on the playlist.

The station is still mostly country. The pop songs air rarely, usually once every hour or two.

“We’re not sure what the intent is other than to potentially differentiate KSCS from sister ‘99.5 The Wolf’ KPLX,” says the RadioInsight post, noting that KHKS/106.1 FM “KISS-FM” and its sister station KDMX/102.9 FM “Now” have a ratings lock on the Top 40-style music KSCS is now occasionally playing. “Perhaps KSCS is attempting to keep some of the listeners who flip back and forth between the those two and the Country outlet a reason to stick around.”

Perhaps, but if you flip back and forth from the pop stations to a country station and miss the once-an-hour-or-so pop song, you’re still going to think you’re listening to a country station that plays all country. But for a lot of listeners, the division between the genres isn’t that extreme. I have a teen-age niece who doesn’t understand people who don’t love country music. She’s also a big fan of rapper Drake.

The mix of country and rock or pop isn’t unheard of. It currently makes up a big chunk of KTCU/88.7 FM’s weekday format, and KZPS/92.5 FM experimented with a classic country-rock hybrid a few years ago, only to drop the country but keep the “Lone Star 92.5” brand it adopted at the time.

Reaction has been, well, mixed on KSCS’ social media sites. A few Facebook comments:

—“My husband and I just finished listening to Don’t by Ed Sheeran. At first we thought we had the wrong station. Since when does KSCS play music other than country.”

—“Why is this [Don’t] playing? It is not Country!! (don’t get me wrong I love this song just not what I think of for country).

—“WHAT the heck are you playing?? Early yesterday morning I heard Wake Me Up by Avicii and thought it was a mistake! Now I’ve been hearing rap for 2 days. Have you made a format change?”

—“Oh my head! Will this junk ever stop...... Going to the Wolf now!” (Note: The Wolf and KSCS are both owned by Cumulus Media).

And a few tweets:

This is all, of course, an attention-getting stunt (it’s working). The question is, why the stunt? Program director J.R. Schumann has not responded to an email requesting comment. The listener posts to the station’s Facebook page asking for an explanation haven’t received replies, and to look at the timeline, you’d never know the station changed anything. A tweet this afternoon — “I think I’ve lost my mind or something. @963kscs did you just play Ed Sheeran “don’t”?! — did get a reply:

Cumulus has been launching “Nash” and “Nash Icon” formats all over the country, but KSCS and the Wolf are a potent duo in Dallas (the Wolf is the only station that has even as much as tied with KISS for No. 1 in a non-holiday period since 2008), and it doesn’t seem wise to mess with either of them. (RadioInsight notes that another Cumulus station that’s already a Nash, New York’s WNSH, is also playing pop songs.) A format switch outside of country seems extremely unlikely, especially with the ACM Awards coming up in April at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

And of course, it’s possible that the station is just messing with us. The truth is out there. Stay tuned ... or find another station.

This story was originally published March 24, 2015 at 4:34 PM with the headline "Rihanna and Kanye West on KSCS? What gives?."