Ten to fifteen years ago, I thought radio stations (and in particular, “rock” radio stations) were the end all be all of music and entertainment. If you gave me a choice between TV and radio, I’d pick radio without batting an eyelash.
I loved our local rock radio station in Massachusetts so much that I sometimes would plan my day around getting to listen to certain shows. On my 18th birthday, my parents even requested a song for me (go figure, it was the one time I wasn’t listening). I knew where the night time DJ lived, and that he had a little kid that lived with him. I bought the comedy cd that the station put out, and stood in an astronomically long line at Newbury Comics, just so I could get the CD signed- he signed it: “Christina rocks my butt.” I ran into the late night DJ with her purple hair in the mall and I got so nervous I couldn’t even say “hi” to her. I even “hated” Howard Stern (who is AMAZING still btw) for a while because of the rivalry between his show and Opie and Anthony’s-I was heartbroken when Opp and Ack were stupid enough to play that prank on the mayor’s family.
Now that’s not to say the music wasn’t great also. Of course it was during the time when NuMetal was really big and I was a teenager so there’s not much they could have done wrong. Looking back, though, they played a wide selection of good music. They had a great local music show (I think it’s still on) and played a mixture of old music and new music. Without radio, I would have never discovered Pantera, or really learned to appreciate Metallica. Hell, they even threw in a little bit of Pink Floyd once in a while, in between the Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and Sublime.
When I moved to California, my respect for radio changed. I was introduced to our local “rock” station here and appalled to find out that they played very little heavy music, and that they had the same 10 songs on repeat. So I did what any homesick and extremely nerdy 18 year old would do. I figured out how to get a live stream on my computer of my home station, and I was satisfied.
Over the years, my obsession died down a little bit, as I “grew up” and learned that there were other ways to discover music out here, so I stopped worrying about radio entirely, except for a brief stint as a staff member on my college radio station.
I never – REPEAT – never listen to the radio willingly anymore. With the advent of Spotify, ipods, iphones, mp3 players, and the amazing hard drive on my Jeep that holds 30 gigs of music, I haven’t needed to. Unfortunately, for the last two days, my beloved Jeep has been in the shop, so I have had a rental car. I don’t want to run the risk of forgetting one of my CDs in it, so I have just been listening to the radio.
I am appalled. Seriously, who does the programming for these stations? I fail to believe the DJ’s actually want to play the same damn songs all day. Radio is supposed to be a way to get to know new music without having to commit to purchasing it, while also enjoying old favorites.
I heard the same song (“Radioactive” by Imagine Dragons) played 5 times in the last 24 hours. And I was only in my car for brief 10-15 minute rides most of the time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a GREAT song. I’m already sick of it. There is such a thing as overkill. There are so many other bands out there. Why only focus on a few?
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It also seems like there is SO little variety on this station. Maybe I’m just getting old now, but I like things to be changed up a little bit now and then. It seems like every song is either electronic, has gang vocals, and has a bit of a reggae beat to it. Even when they play older songs, they play kind of the same style.
KROQ. Fix this. Seriously, you’re ruining radio.
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