So I was streaming WXPN close to the end of my working day. They just finished up a song, and I decided I might switch over to blip.fm to see what was blippin’ around. As I was quickly cycling through my blip songs sequentially, I came to Bon Iver’s Blood Bank, and hastily dismissed it, feeling it was too slow for the last-working-30-minute-push I was looking for. Then, while WXPN was still streaming, David Dye spun the exact same track – and I immediately stopped blippin’ and continued to listen to WXPN.
Why? Why had I just 3 seconds ago dismissed Blood Bank from my expected playlist, but yet freeze with joy when I heard it randomly selected by a great radio DJ? Perhaps it’s the fact that a respectable DJ has somehow selected a song I enjoy, thus validating my supreme and pretentious taste in music. But I think it’s more than that – its the randomness and the possibility of hearing an absolute great song set, mixing in oldies but goodies (90s Sheryl Crow) and jumping new hits. I fear we are going to lose this DJ magic. Techmology is amazing, but can it truly replace a wonderful DJ? Should it? I’m afraid that I’m afraid of these answers.
Too often do I find myself at the gym, pressing the “next song” button 14 times until I find a somewhat digestible song to work out to. Will mp3 players kill DJs (speaking of which? Are VJs now dead? I hope so…)? Would tuning into Impact 89FM be more enjoyable? [Side note: Can someone invite a protocol where mp3 players can broadcast the songs they are playing? Maybe I'm just nosy, but I'd like to know what others are rocking out to.]
Radio has been hurting a bit by the past decades surge in digital music, with listeners now enabled to tune their ears to dozens of other musical outlets. My current favorite musical outlet/interface is the aforementioned Twitter+Music blip.fm site. However, just in this example, my favorite new musical outlet/interface was totally pwned by my favorite radio musical outlet (not to mention WXPN has introduced me to many new great artists, while blip.fm has mostly just reaffirmed and validated that others exist who enjoy the same songs/bands I enjoy – haven’t found many new artists via blip.fm). Plus, I won’t lie, on my Friday drives to the DTW airport, I love me some Science Friday.
So hears to the old fashioned radio waves, and hoping AM/FM doesn’t go the way of XM/Sirius…
Tags: "old fashioned" Radio DJs · Ali G Easter Egg · blip.fm · David Dye · Impact 89FM · Ira Flatow · WXPN1 Comment
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For me, radio is all about connecting with the outside world. When I’m in for a long drive, my car’s CD player or my iPod are perfect… but when I’m commuting to work in the morning, I like to be able to listen to live DJs (WDVE mainly) crack wise, give me updates, and keep things light. Plus, when they do stop talking about play some tunes, they’re usually perfect driving songs (and like 85% AC/DC).