She Speaks
You should definitely get the CD player in your car fixed, the half hour of commercials that airs after every other radio song would drive me straight to the repair shop! Now I know what to get you for your birthday. While we are at it, why is there so much (f-bob removed because my mom just got a computer) talking on radio these days? With CD’s and MP3’s you would think the stations would try and shut up to compete. I realize there are actually some people who enjoy(?) the endless droning of radio personalities, but really who are these losers?
The people in Charlotte, NC are the luckiest people in the whole country. They get boy band, Kelly Clarkson free radio with no DJ’s and very few commercial interruptions. Sure, they lose out on the call in contests and they can’t ask the DJ to play their favorite song, but they don’t need to. It is already playing on the radio. I was in the area for just over a week and I never heard the same song twice. I was actually able to hear DIFFERENT songs by the same artist, even better from different time periods of their careers. How hard is it for a radio station to do that? Apparently, it’s extremely difficult.
For the life of me, I can not understand how the radio stations here can have flashback to the 80’s every weekend and only play the same 20 songs. I used to think it was a fun, great way to reminisce, but now that I have heard “Love Shack” by the B-52’s nine hundred and fifteen times since noon, I can’t help but wonder if there were any other artists recording music during the 80’s. I am sure if they think back long enough, they will remember a few others.
You know, every now and then, I get called by a local research company wanting to find out what I listen to on the radio. The person on the other end of the line is always aghast when I can’t name a single morning show personality. I refuse to listen to their constant droning; I simply don’t tune in. I actually had a lady argue with me last summer when I told her, “if I hear Sheryl Crow’s ‘Soak Up the Sun’ one more time, I was going to start taking hostages”. She said to me, “You don’t like that song? Everybody loves that song”, maybe the first 1000 times we heard it.
Add “Landslide” by the Dixie Chicks on there, too. First of all, any person attempting to remake that song should be shot on sight. Even if I did like the song or the Dixie Chicks, I am certain they have recorded at least one other song stations could play. So why is it every time I turn on the radio, that song is playing, often on multiple stations? Why can’t they ever play “So Alive” by Love & Rockets? Why is the only Black Crowes tune the stations can remember, “She Talks to Angels”? What happened to “Remedy”or “Jealous Again”? Why are they always playing Tom Cochrane’s “Life is a Highway” when I drive through West Virginia? Why did Hootie and the Blowfish get a recording contract? Was it to torture me, FOREVER? I can’t get away from that crap. And lastly, why is there no station playing John Tesh’s greatest hits 24 hours a day because I really dig the theme to the NBA on NBC?
It is settled then, Carol and I will start saving our money and by the time we are 80, we will have enough to start the most incredibly bitchin’ radio station the nursing home has ever seen!
June 10th, 2003 at 2:37 pm
Aimee is right.
Don’t care much for saying that in public, but she’s right on the matter of modern FM radio. (She knows I kid). The reasons for the downfall of Rock radio (and by the way everything is rock here — don’t give me that break-it-down-genre crap) can be seen all over in just about every industry. There’s a great skit done by the Bloodhound Gang on their first CD in which they offer a CD of “classic” 80’s TV show themes as sung by Axl Rose. “Available from Cheese Factory Records — which is part of — Underdog Records — which is part of — Columbia Records — which is part of — Sony Music International.”
Corporate business enetered the music world, then the radio world. Video didn’t kill the radio star, Cumulus Broadcasting did. Ever notice how many stations sound exactly the same, have the same names, etc. Standardization destroyed the medium.
I speak from experience. Without going into too much past of mine, I was in radio, one of Auburn’s top DJ’s in the mid 90’s. I had the highest ratings in Auburn history for a single show. Of course one reason was because I did not work for one of those damn mass media companies.
DJ’s are severely limited. The once proud trade is now just above the skill level of a chimp. They are financially obligated to do several things during breaks. The almighty dollar accounts for nearly everything that is said and done on the air today. Most stations have the music preselected hours if not days in advance, leaving programmed “slots” for requests.
I say these things because there is no one who loves the medium, being on the air, more than me. Truly there is nothing I’d rather do. And there is no one who HATES what’s become of radio more than me.
Yes, radio is free, but those who do it can’t work for free, commercials pay the bills and keep radio alive. But there’s a better way, and if they don’t find it soon, radio will be another relic of the 20th century.