It might seem like a stupid question, but in this day and age, why would the best alternative for listening to music ever be the radio? Ok I admit this is bound to be a controversial topic, I’m not saying all radio stations should be boycotted or anything like that. I’m also not talking about college radio stations or smaller independent stations. What I’m referring to are the big corporate owned stations who are out to make money. In it’s most basic form, all these radio stations do is take the so called “hits” and constantly replay them in rotation probably over the span of an hour.
But who chose these hits, and are these really the best songs currently out there? Doubtful. More than likely, the big name record labels are paying these stations for spins of their biggest artist’s latest single. And it’s not even like that single was chosen by fans, so in a lot of cases, it might not even be one of the best songs on the album. See where I’m going with this?
Why should you let someone else tell you what you should be listening to? Why should you let someone else decide for you, what songs you should be hearing at any given time? Is it really fair that some of the best artists never even get heard on the radio, but instead listeners are force fed some particular artists who don’t have talent?
Sure it’s nice to hear new songs get premiered on the radio. However, in the internet age, there is a much better chance that you will be able to hear the song first online rather than over the radio. Additionally, it brings us back to the original problem, will you even be hearing the best new songs that are being released by artists?
So what am I suggesting? There are plenty of alternatives out there. The first is simple, the Ipod. It seems like everyone has one of these nowadays, and they even sell the connections to the stereo in your car for pretty cheap. Just put the thing on shuffle, and I guarantee a much better rotation of songs to your liking will come up. There is also such free services such as Pandora. Although they are selecting the songs for you, you have the power to skip songs you don’t like! What a great idea. Also, if you find the right station on there, you could get a string of ten or so songs you like and maybe haven’t even heard in awhile.
My conclusion is simple. With a hobby that many of us are so passionate about such as music, why would we let someone control what we are listening to? I don’t have the answer to that.
If you are lucky, as I am, you have a good community radio station that real new music and not the corporate crap new music that gets shoved down everyone elses throat. I guess there are other good community radio stations around the country but I don't know if they play the mixed bag of music that WMNF plays. They play everything from experimental music to polka and everything in between. WMNF is out of Tampa Florida but available on the web at WMNF.org. Take a look and pick a program that you like and give it a listen.
Aiight cool, thanks for the link, I'm definitely going to check that out. The concept is pretty cool and definitely something they need more of in other locations too.