The Blogg

Radio what’s new? Radio, someone still loves you

For many years, I never listened to the radio. If the weather was just right I could pick up WRTI 90.1 out of Temple University, and they played decent jazz at some hours of the day. Otherwise, your listening options in Lancaster County were all country or top 40, epitomized by the terrible and ever-present 96.9 WLAN cycle of the most recent popular (c)rap and modern rock recordings of the week.

When I moved to the Philadelphia area and now the Lehigh Valley I’ve become very fond of listening to the radio while driving. We are fortunate enough here in Bethlehem to be able to easily find signals from 102.9 WMGK, the classic rock station in Philadelphia, 99.9 WODE, the classic rock station in Easton, 93.3 WMMR, the hard rock station in Philadelphia, and 95.1 WZZO, the hard rock station in Bethlehem. Between the four I can generally find something for my current mood; WMGK is generally too soft for my taste, WODE is generally too repetitive for my taste, and WMMR and WZZO are generally too modern for my taste, but mixing and matching works pretty well.

Unfortunately, they are all owned by media conglomerates, so I have no reason to think they aren’t basing their programming at least partially on payola and other influence from the evil RIAA. Listening to WZZO often in recent days, it seems like I can’t get through a car ride without hearing Buckcherry’s “Crazy Bitch”, Nickelback’s “Animals”, Audioslave’s “Doesn’t Remind Me”, or Hinder’s “Get Stoned”. Obviously SOMEONE must want this drivel to be promoted. (Actually, I have to admit I kind of like the Nickelback song, I just don’t want to hear it every hour.)

There goes the last DJ who plays what he wants to play and says what he wants to say, hey hey hey. And there goes your freedom of choice, there goes the last human voice.

What really annoys me, however, is constantly being reminded that you “get me back to the rock faster”, that “we play less commercials”, that “ZZO rocks in 30 seconds”, cute dialogues between the DJs and the supposed person in charge of playing commercials, etc. Honestly, I would rather hear a commercial (*) for a product I might not know about than yet another hypocritical spot about playing lots of music.

* This does not apply to the commercial for Enternet “Are you frazzled, is your computer on the fritz?” or any of the others by that person with the most obnoxious reading style ever. I would rather listen to nails on a chalkboard all day than that.