Back in the day I ran a small Shout cast server. Once had around 40 listeners. It made teenage me happy. In a broken voice, between tracks, I'd pretend to be a radio guy on my cheap desktop microphone (those white/grey/cream sticks, you know the ones I'm sure).
"Yo yo yo, that was a SICK beat, let's get on down to some more funky tunes!!!"
This is why radio died. Rock stations playing Aerosmith, guns and roses and ac/DC on repeat. Instead of 5 minutes of something new. By 2010 most if us were leaving fm for pre-downloaded music, 2015 apps were widely available, by 2020, what even was radio
They walked to their own Graves and pulled the trigger
Companies like iheartradio and others killed radio. I got to experience a little taste of the old days just before it all transitioned. There was an actual person. In a studio. Behind a mic. It was so much fun. Now it's all syndicated, pre-recorded, pre-packaged bullshit sent out to 1,000 stations that all sound the same, playing at its preset time in an empty studio.
As annoying as this is, it’s not really the radio station’s fault. Broadcast licenses for songs are cartoonishly expensive, so most stations can only afford to hold so many at a time.
So like most problems in the music industry, it’s due to the greed of the record companies.
Same with classic rock stations, I swear to fucking god Boston's 100.7 plays Turn the Page by Bob Seger or Metallica's cover daily at like 7:45am. That's usually followed by one of 3 AC/DC songs then 10-15 minutes of commercials since iHeartRadio bought them a while ago.
Any NPR music station is gonna be awesome. KEXP is probably one of the GOATs. KCMP in Minneapolis, KTBG in KC, KOPN in Columbia, Missouri, KVOQ in Denver.
Honestly, it's the listener supported/community run radio stations that are the best.
Boot Liquor became a MASSIVE source of family drama during a fishing tournament around 2008 or so.
We were tooting along in our boat, fishing the morning away when I decided to put Boot Liquor on.
Classics such as "I'm not drunk, I'm just drinking" and "If I ain't drunk, then I ain't drinking" were well received.
Then "Kiss You Down There" by Hackenshaw Boys came on, and my grandfather started to get VISIBLY angry about the content of the song. Him and my uncle started arguing about how it's just a silly song and that his 20 year old grandsons were perfectly fine listening to it.
Gramps was having none of it and flicked a cigarette butt at my uncle and all hell broke loose.
We lost 4 fishing rods during the scuffle, swallowed up by the merciless lake.
Most stations, despite a live DJ (I think), play the same 40-50 songs all day everyday, often on the same timetable. So if you heard say Free Bird at 2pm, you'll hear it the following day at the same time within 20ish min. And I'd imagine every station is like this.
It came free in my truck for a year, sweet. The only reason I kept it was because I was able to keep swinging the $6/month thing, and I really only want to tune into the Dead channel whenever I please, and only because Lemieux has an excellent rotation of live shows. But even they play the same studio cuts at the same time of day. If it weren't for the fact that I'm still rebuilding my music server, I'd likely have dropped them, but still, any mainstream radio service is pretty much poopy.
Somewhat related—oldies stations are like this, except with "new" songs entering the rotation periodically. Of course, when the end of the year rolls around they play the "Top 100 songs of the year" which are essentially the same set of songs in a haphazard order.
I didn't mind it so much because it was much better than listening to the low hum of showcase coolers of a mom-and-pop grocery store. However, it was pretty jarring when I heard them play a song I distinctly remember hearing on the radio as a kid riding in the back of the van getting dropped off for 1st grade (or some such young age)
However, it was pretty jarring when I heard them play a song I distinctly remember hearing on the radio as a kid riding in the back of the van getting dropped off for 1st grade (or some such young age)
Shit, I remember tuning in to KLOS (So Cal classic rock) a while back and being super confused as to why they were playing Nirvana. As Bob Dylan said, "The times, they are a-changin"
We have a radio station in my home town that used to call itself "Mix 100" (their frequency was 100.1). I figured it was because they played the same 100 songs and each of the songs they played were ones I'd heard 100 times before.
If anyone's is interested in a stream of modern rock that is devoted to new music, I can introduce you to the dj before he does a stream. I spoke with Alan Cross (From the Ongoing History of rock and roll) via email briefly about this DJ and Alan already knew who he was and there is video interview between the two of them as well
If interested send me a message, don't want to promote a link to something I support through patreon without permission, but I'm happy to share to anyone that's interested.
Last week was his first live show in a long time, and I'm glad he has decided to continue.