What Happened To My Radio

This is part two in what will hopefully be a five part seemingly interconnected but probably not at all series on aspects of music. For part one go here.

I don't know if you are aware of this but the Washington Post's online paper has various discussion groups everyday where some of their employees will answer questions their readership have asked them. A couple months ago I used to try getting as many questions answered as I possibly could which meant me asking questions to the Washington Post culinary expert on what are the best ingredients to make a a rhubarb pie. Yeah it can get pretty boring at work and anything to pass the time.

Well one day the Washington Post Pop Culture guy was online answering questions about this or that. Usually its about why he thinks the Springsteen show was super awesome or how much old R & B is better than whatever R & B is popular with the kids today. I decided to ask him, and again I paraphrase all of this because it happened a long time ago, "to get more listeners why don't radio stations actually expand their playlists, put on new and exciting artists, and maybe not play The Red Hot Chili Peppers twice every hour?"

The answer he gave me basically boiled down to "because with their ratings all ready as anemic as they are they would suffer more because people want to hear stuff that is familiar." At first his answer pissed me off because 1) It seemed like he was blowing me off and 2.) Yeah because that line of thinking has been working so well as of late with every single radio station either folding or switching to a different format. The more I thought about it and considered it I think it was a totally valid point.

When I was in twelfth grade it must have been the year that Napster became ingrained in the mainstream conscience of America. I will admit it was an exciting time. Imagine how excited some broke ass penny pinching loser like me was. You mean I could download the Clash's Sandinista for free and also totally rock out to it in a couple hours! No seriously I can hear Washington Bullets almost immediately on my Winamp without paying a nickel. To me this was the greatest development since I discovered the late night Cinemax.

Well anyways with Napster catching on in some of my classes my fellow students would use the computers to download whatever shit music happened to be popular that hour of the day. For some odd reason the people in my marketing class were downloading a Limp Biscuit song which was probably Nookie. I will never forget this because of a conversation between my friend and one of the Limp Biscuit Fans:

John: So let me ask. This Napster you can download any song you want?

Nick: Yeah man. Its awesome.

John: So you can download any song by anyone you want but you guys are downloading Limp Buscuit? You can hear that on the radio all day.

Nick: uhhh.

I find it fascinating in today s modern world where there are now numerous venues to expose someone to new and exciting music that more people don't go outside of their comfort zone to find exciting new bands that could possibly make their eardrums orgasm. I mean look at the facts; the old gate keepers of what used to be pop culture definers such as the radio and MTV are either dieing or more content on creating horrible fucking reality shows with these brainless people who work at modeling companies and are sad because their boyfriend Spencer did not recognize their new Prada bag.

It would be understandable back in the day when all you had to chose from were the Beatles and Rolling Stones. There was only radio and whatever word of mouth of whomever the coolest guy at school was on what bands you should be listening to. Now a days its much easier to hear what the coolest guy at school thinks thanks to the internet. Even if you go to some shitty Catholic school who's idea of cool is wearing a abstinence ring and a Jesus is My Homeboy t-shirt(but I'm sure this person can inform you that Five Iron Frenzy still rocks),you can get on the internet and hear what the cool kids have to say there. Now you can hear what the cool kid at some hipster university in the North East thinks about the new Vampire Weekend song (He probably likes it, along with drinking Pabst Blue Ribbons and wearing tight Sweaters)!

Look at the various mediums to discover new music. Heck man you have Pandora the musical Genome Project that will take songs you like and play similar sounding ones. You can sample any song you want to off of Itunes. There are tons of websites you can go to where people who have even more time on their hands than me write very pretentious reviews of the latest folk rock album out of Tanzania. I guess my point is that there is no excuse to be downloading "I Did It All For The Nookie" anymore.

Until tomorrow.