STARKVILLE — Music may have the power to unite people and start important conversations generally, but two local music enthusiasts have taken that philosophy to a new level.
Natalie Staggers, a senior communications major at Mississippi State University, and Reagan Bussey, her former coworker at the WMSV radio station on MSU’s campus, have started Queue magazine and radio station – helping music lovers discover new artists, explore different genres and stay up to date on local music events.
“It really started as a passion project,” Staggers told The Dispatch on Monday. “It wasn’t anything that we wanted to make this a career right now. We both just wanted to write … and we wanted to make our own platform to do it.”
Staggers and Bussey met in spring 2022, on Staggers’ first day working at the WMSV radio station. Bussey was assigned to train Staggers, and though she was initially reluctant about the task, Staggers’ t-shirt quickly melted the ice.
“I came in for my first training shift, and I walked in with a Queen shirt on, and she went, ‘oh my God, Queen is my favorite band,’” Staggers said. “And we immediately sat down and just hit it off and started talking about music.”
“I had to test her and see if she was a poser or not,” Bussey joked.
The pair considered each other “work friends” for about a year and a half, trading opinions on music during the short overlaps in their shifts at the station. But one day, as Staggers was coming in for her next shift, Bussey asked for her help finishing an online quiz naming every song in the discography of the band The Police.
The two became fast friends, and by May, Staggers joined a band Bussey was playing in. Though the band eventually fizzled, time practicing together gave them the chance to come up with the idea for their magazine.
“We were both just kind of talking about how we had both had this shared experience of going to a publication and saying ‘we want to write about music,’ and them seeming super excited, and then whenever we pitched music articles, them just having no interest, pretty much,” Staggers said. “And (Bussey) was like, ‘let’s just start our own publication.’”
The next morning, Bussey and Staggers were coming up with names and logos for Queue and they were off to the races. They brainstormed and researched different articles and layouts for their publication.
By July, they had their first zine – an 18 page short magazine they had made themselves. And once they published the first one, the pair kept going, publishing six more monthly editions of the passion project. Never backing down from a challenge, Staggers and Bussey decided to expand the zine to a full-length quarterly magazine, publishing the first 42-page edition at the beginning of this month.
The magazine includes things like a Discography Deep Dive – where each girl listens to the entire discography of an artist, reviewing and ranking it – a question and answer portion, feature articles on musical artists and trends and more. The magazine includes all kinds of music, spanning all eras, to allow conversations with all kinds of music lovers, Staggers said.
While Staggers’ features tend to focus on interviews, Bussey’s tend to focus more on in-depth research.
Staggers said her favorite article she’s written so far was an interview with local band Sonic Voyager because of the connections she made with the group long-term. Bussey said her favorite article to write was one about the Billboard charts, and how the nationalities of popular bands fluctuated throughout the Vietnam War.
“I looked at 12 years worth of Billboard charts… like 250-something weeks?” Bussey said. “I looked at the top 50 every week from 1963 to 1975, and I looked at the Top 50 and I tallied up… how many are American, how many are British, how many are Canadian, and then others in Australia and other countries in Europe. … And then I compared each week and the trend to the events happening in the Vietnam war.”
Even with their plates full, the pair decided to take on more, starting their own radio station as another way to share the music they love. Staggers DJs the station from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. each weekday, while Bussey DJs the station from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. each weekday.
The station also includes special programs on the weekends.
Both Staggers and Bussey said that they enjoy the element of connection with others that the magazine and station afford them. Queue has allowed them to share some of their own favorite artists, like the Police, Queen, Electric Light Orchestra and the Beatles – and to hear from other music fans in the area as well.
“We want people to get involved,” Staggers said. “We are not just writing to get it out there. That is part of it, but part of the thing we love about writing about music is the connection… that you get through that with people.”
“Like, when people comment on our… articles or songs that we play, I love that feedback and starting a conversation with our readers and our listeners,” Bussey said.
Currently, the pair said, Queue is a passion project between their other jobs, finishing their degrees and playing music themselves. Still, they were open to what the future may hold for the magazine and radio station.
“If it turns into something huge and we can make a career out of it, awesome,” Staggers said. “But if it just stays a passion project, I think we’re also totally satisfied with that. We’re just seeing where it goes at this point.”
“Rolling Stone better watch out though,” Bussey joked.
Queue radio and publications can be found at queuezine.com/.
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 30 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
