5 ms·

our radio stations are vanishing, period, into a siriusXM and ClearChannel morass of repetitive hell. NPR affiliates (KEXP, etc) and college radio stations (WZB

our radio stations are vanishing, period, into a siriusXM and ClearChannel morass of repetitive hell. NPR affiliates (KEXP, etc) and college radio stations (WZBC, WRCT) keep the flame alive but they’re all that’s left. I still dearly miss the stations of my youth, which were crucial venues for hip hop culture (HOT97) and alt rock (KROCK, WFNX, ... ) in a way that youtube and soundcloud and bandcamp just aren’t.

Sylamore 7y ago
I miss the pre-merger XM. Back when I was a subscriber you could listen for several days and hear virtually no repeats on a single station, there was a depth to the song selections that exposed me to lots of new artists. There were actual DJs on the air and there were only a few minutes worth of commercials per hour. I recently had a SiriusXM trial and it seems like all the stations now have a fixed playlist that's limited to around 60 songs at a time, it was very much like domestic radio and it wasn't uncommon to hear the same song played multiple times in the same day. Granted, it's still significantly better than local radio (RDU MSA doesn't even have a hard rock or modern rock station) I just can't justify spending money on it when I already have streaming capabilities via my phone - but I do miss the curated content of a human actually into the material.
cheez 7y ago
> in a way that youtube and soundcloud and bandcamp just aren’t. For you. My daughter finds new non-pop music just fine.
chrisseaton 7y ago
What do you think they contributed in your youth? Apart from high-quality spoken-word content (like Radio 3 and Radio 4), most radio stations are playing music which I could listen to elsewhere, in higher quality, when I want, and then they add some super low quality filler chat in between. Plus adverts! What do you miss from them? Just that was the only way to access music back then?
- hprotagonist 7y ago
  My youth did not include high quality on demand free or minimially expensive music and/or music discovery services that were not a FM radio (or MTV). Independent radio stations have DJs and a culture around them that foster new music and support independent musicians. To pick an example, Hot97 was _the_ voice of the bronx (literally, in the case of angie martinez) and the east coast hip hop scene from more or less the beginning. DJs would meet or be introduced to or know of local artists, get their demo tapes on the air, and launched major careers as a result.
  - empath75 7y ago
    Yeah but now people have thousands and thousands of DJ’s to choose from.
    - hprotagonist 7y ago
      and the vast majority of them suck! that probably makes me a grouchy old man, but the fragmentation and personalization of music does actually lead to a dilution.
  - chrismeller 7y ago
    And you think that major careers cannot be launched via Spotify or YouTube or any of a dozen other options? This just feels like one of those “things are different” situations where nothing is better or worse, but simply not the way it was.
- mattmanser 7y ago
  I don't feel this is true. Think of the best DJs as curators, yes a lot will be the same, but DJs will help you discover new music and discuss that music too. The legendary John Peel of BBC Radio 1 being a good example. I still listen to BBC Radio 6 these days for the same reason, good way to find new music and to be introduced to genres you may never be exposed to by an echo-chamber algo in your favourite music app.
- tyingq 7y ago
wayoutthere 7y ago
I dunno; they’ve just been replaced with curated Spotify playlists and podcasts. Hip hop culture exists on Instagram today, but it’s become a sociopathic mix of Wall Street values, luxury brand product placement and gang violence. Gucci has transformed gang wars into product sales that make rappers rich. Getting rich is the only goal.
Waterluvian 7y ago
We like them because of nostalgia. They were awful compared to what you can find these days online and in podcast form. As a child I remember radio being the same 11 songs and a ton of ads.
- pixelrevision 7y ago
  In some cases... One thing I think also contributes is that a lack of access creates want. Having instant access to things makes them a bit less magical. I notice this a lot with my son, he has access to tons of media so he takes most of them for granted. However we don't allow unsupervised youtube so in his mind it's become the forbidden fruit that his friends all have. Every time he gets to watch some gaming streamer he gets really excited and lights up in the same way that we did when that 12th song the radio never played came on :)
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    Someone once said to me, "my kids can watch the Grinch Christmas special any time they want. So it's not special anymore." I completely agree.
- momokoko 7y ago
  Definitely not true. There was a clear and obvious difference when the large broadcasters starting buying up and consolidating all the local stations. You're childhood was likely after that had happened.
reaperducer 7y ago
There's plenty of terrible radio around, but Sirius isn't the cause. In fact, IMO, Sirius is the savior of radio. It's where all the really good radio talent went when terrestrial radio was mostly turned into garbage. Most of the biggest names in radio from the 60's through the 90's are there. People balk at paying for Sirius, but there is real quality entertainment there. It's not an iPod pretending to be radio like streaming services. It's actual radio, with on-air talent, and an ever-expanding library of original content. Even on what you might think are low-interest channels like the 40's channel, or the Sinatra channel, or the Jimmy Buffet channel, or Tom Petty channel, there are new shows made daily, live concerts, and all kinds of things that "real" radio used to do, but gave up in favor of automation. There are even hyper-niche channels like one that plays Carolina Shag (coastal North and South Carolina music from the 50's and 60's), or the one that's all independent Canadian music, or half a dozen stand-up comedy channels. Or something that I enjoy way more than I'd like to admit: Yacht Rock, which is the kinds of music that you'd imagine that a couple named Chad and Buffy would play on their yacht off the coast of Montauk. Or as the channel describes itself, "Everyone's fifth or sixth favorite soft rock songs from the 70's and 80's." There's still excellent terrestrial radio, but you have to seek it out. WXRT/Chicago, KCSN/Northridge, KING-FM-HD2/Seattle, and KGFN/Goldfield leap to mind, but there are others. The rise of Citicasters/Jacor/Clear Channel is what made me quit radio. But these few holdouts (some even corporate-owned!) are still producing quality radio, and if you can't find something to listen to on Sirius, then I don't know what to say. / Worked for 10 years in radio on-air and behind the scenes / Happy Sirius subscriber
- creeble 7y ago
  I like Sirius, or at least 3 or 4 stations. Enough to make the fees palatable. What's almost UNpalatable is the audio quality: my Audi has the Sirius decoder, and it's notably awful. 17-32k stream according to Wikipedia. I guess some of the XM radios have higher rates. It's awful.
  - peapicker 7y ago
    I’m with you. My Mini with 10 speaker Harmon Kardon audio and a free three month Siruis sub has made me realize Sirius audio quality is horrible. Mostly still listen to HQ Spotify with my premium sub. It might be better using SiriusXM’s app and doing data but I like being my own DJ. Plus I get dropouts in south metro Denver area on Sirius and never on Spotify using Verizon.
Spooky23 7y ago
It’s different in the country and far worse. The consolidation of all things has vaporized advertising business in small markets. That means there is nothing. No daily/weekly newspaper, no radio. Just Jesus and a clear channel affiliate playing a national soundtrack. (And they are fiscal timebombs too.) Basically, you live in a different country if you aren’t in a top-50/too-100 market. That’s one of the big drivers of reactionary politics.
MisterTea 7y ago
I'm in NYC and while I'm not into hip hop I remember driving around in a delivery van with this gnarly dude listening to KRock and Q104.3. It was the same damn song over and over again on Q104.3, same hendrix, beatles, zeplin, doors, etc, etc. you could listen to that station for one day and hear all it has to offer. The the ads, talk about a cacophony of awful noise. Couldn't stand it. KRock was the same in its later years though I remember remember a time when it didn't suck as much. But again, the ads were awful. Though the best rock station around (90's/00's) was the NJ college station 89.5 WSOU, Seton Hall's Pirate Radio. Hard Rock, Punk, Hard core, Metal, etc. Awesome station if you could receive it, almost impossible to listen to in a car. I listened via hooking the roof antenna to an FM amplifier and then to my Harmon Kardon receiver I rescued from the trash and repaired. I'd to tune in, run a cassette on record and mix down the songs I liked later on. Another treat used to be this DJ, a woman with a thick european accent who played black and death metal on monday nights, Monday Night Mayhem. Discovered so many great bands from that station. Never got old, never played out the same damn metallica song like Krock. Instead you got Pantera, Meshuggah, Megadeth, Gwar, Gojira (Back when they were still Godzilla), Sick of It all, Life of Agony, and a ton more. Then at some point I stopped listening for one reason or another, there was also a big format change too. It's still around though haven't tuned in for years. Now I just keep the radio tuned to WQXR, the public classical radio station. No ads but the pleas for donation can get a bit annoying at times. Though I have donated. Then I get my fill of weird music from roaming around peoples bandcamp profiles. You can find all sorts of stuff on there. Rock, metal, noise, electronic, you name it.
- erikschoster 7y ago
  You might like WFMU (especially if you're into weirder things) which you should be able to pick up on 91.9FM if you're in the NYC area.
- MisterTea 7y ago
  > Then at some point I stopped listening for one reason or another, there was also a big format change too. Just realized it was when napster came about plus the format change eliminated a lot of the metal so I got bored with it. Plus I discovered so much more music on napster and even got a bit more into industrial and other electronic genres.
dunnevens 7y ago
XM has a hip-hop station concentrating on what's popular. Also a station concentrating on what's indie and up-and-coming. A station with nothing but rap from 1980-2000something. There's also a modern R&B station which has considerable crossover with the popular hip-hop station. And there's a 70s & 80s funk station which helps people discover the original songs that have been sampled to hell and back. As an added bonus, there's a Korean station which sometimes plays hip hop from there. I also sometimes hear French and Quebecois rap on one of the Canadian stations. That's far more variety than what you'd get from a local radio station. Youtube gives you almost every song ever made. Soundcloud gives you so many great unknown and indie artists. Bandcamp also gives you a huge & worldwide selection of independent rappers, and will help you discover them via their excellent blog. And, for hip hop specifically, there's Datpiff and all the other sites hosting mixtapes. I can understand being nostalgic for the stations of your youth, but it pales considerably compared to what's available now.

Sylamore 7y ago

I miss the pre-merger XM. Back when I was a subscriber you could listen for several days and hear virtually no repeats on a single station, there was a depth to the song selections that exposed me to lots of new artists. There were actual DJs on the air and there were only a few minutes worth of commercials per hour. I recently had a SiriusXM trial and it seems like all the stations now have a fixed playlist that's limited to around 60 songs at a time, it was very much like domestic radio and it wasn't uncommon to hear the same song played multiple times in the same day. Granted, it's still significantly better than local radio (RDU MSA doesn't even have a hard rock or modern rock station) I just can't justify spending money on it when I already have streaming capabilities via my phone - but I do miss the curated content of a human actually into the material.

cheez 7y ago

> in a way that youtube and soundcloud and bandcamp just aren’t. For you. My daughter finds new non-pop music just fine.

chrisseaton 7y ago

What do you think they contributed in your youth? Apart from high-quality spoken-word content (like Radio 3 and Radio 4), most radio stations are playing music which I could listen to elsewhere, in higher quality, when I want, and then they add some super low quality filler chat in between. Plus adverts! What do you miss from them? Just that was the only way to access music back then?

hprotagonist 7y ago
My youth did not include high quality on demand free or minimially expensive music and/or music discovery services that were not a FM radio (or MTV). Independent radio stations have DJs and a culture around them that foster new music and support independent musicians. To pick an example, Hot97 was _the_ voice of the bronx (literally, in the case of angie martinez) and the east coast hip hop scene from more or less the beginning. DJs would meet or be introduced to or know of local artists, get their demo tapes on the air, and launched major careers as a result.
- empath75 7y ago
  Yeah but now people have thousands and thousands of DJ’s to choose from.
  - hprotagonist 7y ago
    and the vast majority of them suck! that probably makes me a grouchy old man, but the fragmentation and personalization of music does actually lead to a dilution.
- chrismeller 7y ago
  And you think that major careers cannot be launched via Spotify or YouTube or any of a dozen other options? This just feels like one of those “things are different” situations where nothing is better or worse, but simply not the way it was.
mattmanser 7y ago
I don't feel this is true. Think of the best DJs as curators, yes a lot will be the same, but DJs will help you discover new music and discuss that music too. The legendary John Peel of BBC Radio 1 being a good example. I still listen to BBC Radio 6 these days for the same reason, good way to find new music and to be introduced to genres you may never be exposed to by an echo-chamber algo in your favourite music app.
tyingq 7y ago

wayoutthere 7y ago

I dunno; they’ve just been replaced with curated Spotify playlists and podcasts. Hip hop culture exists on Instagram today, but it’s become a sociopathic mix of Wall Street values, luxury brand product placement and gang violence. Gucci has transformed gang wars into product sales that make rappers rich. Getting rich is the only goal.

Waterluvian 7y ago

We like them because of nostalgia. They were awful compared to what you can find these days online and in podcast form. As a child I remember radio being the same 11 songs and a ton of ads.

pixelrevision 7y ago
In some cases... One thing I think also contributes is that a lack of access creates want. Having instant access to things makes them a bit less magical. I notice this a lot with my son, he has access to tons of media so he takes most of them for granted. However we don't allow unsupervised youtube so in his mind it's become the forbidden fruit that his friends all have. Every time he gets to watch some gaming streamer he gets really excited and lights up in the same way that we did when that 12th song the radio never played came on :)
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  Someone once said to me, "my kids can watch the Grinch Christmas special any time they want. So it's not special anymore." I completely agree.
momokoko 7y ago
Definitely not true. There was a clear and obvious difference when the large broadcasters starting buying up and consolidating all the local stations. You're childhood was likely after that had happened.

reaperducer 7y ago

There's plenty of terrible radio around, but Sirius isn't the cause. In fact, IMO, Sirius is the savior of radio. It's where all the really good radio talent went when terrestrial radio was mostly turned into garbage. Most of the biggest names in radio from the 60's through the 90's are there. People balk at paying for Sirius, but there is real quality entertainment there. It's not an iPod pretending to be radio like streaming services. It's actual radio, with on-air talent, and an ever-expanding library of original content. Even on what you might think are low-interest channels like the 40's channel, or the Sinatra channel, or the Jimmy Buffet channel, or Tom Petty channel, there are new shows made daily, live concerts, and all kinds of things that "real" radio used to do, but gave up in favor of automation. There are even hyper-niche channels like one that plays Carolina Shag (coastal North and South Carolina music from the 50's and 60's), or the one that's all independent Canadian music, or half a dozen stand-up comedy channels. Or something that I enjoy way more than I'd like to admit: Yacht Rock, which is the kinds of music that you'd imagine that a couple named Chad and Buffy would play on their yacht off the coast of Montauk. Or as the channel describes itself, "Everyone's fifth or sixth favorite soft rock songs from the 70's and 80's." There's still excellent terrestrial radio, but you have to seek it out. WXRT/Chicago, KCSN/Northridge, KING-FM-HD2/Seattle, and KGFN/Goldfield leap to mind, but there are others. The rise of Citicasters/Jacor/Clear Channel is what made me quit radio. But these few holdouts (some even corporate-owned!) are still producing quality radio, and if you can't find something to listen to on Sirius, then I don't know what to say. / Worked for 10 years in radio on-air and behind the scenes / Happy Sirius subscriber

creeble 7y ago
I like Sirius, or at least 3 or 4 stations. Enough to make the fees palatable. What's almost UNpalatable is the audio quality: my Audi has the Sirius decoder, and it's notably awful. 17-32k stream according to Wikipedia. I guess some of the XM radios have higher rates. It's awful.
- peapicker 7y ago
  I’m with you. My Mini with 10 speaker Harmon Kardon audio and a free three month Siruis sub has made me realize Sirius audio quality is horrible. Mostly still listen to HQ Spotify with my premium sub. It might be better using SiriusXM’s app and doing data but I like being my own DJ. Plus I get dropouts in south metro Denver area on Sirius and never on Spotify using Verizon.

Spooky23 7y ago

It’s different in the country and far worse. The consolidation of all things has vaporized advertising business in small markets. That means there is nothing. No daily/weekly newspaper, no radio. Just Jesus and a clear channel affiliate playing a national soundtrack. (And they are fiscal timebombs too.) Basically, you live in a different country if you aren’t in a top-50/too-100 market. That’s one of the big drivers of reactionary politics.

MisterTea 7y ago

I'm in NYC and while I'm not into hip hop I remember driving around in a delivery van with this gnarly dude listening to KRock and Q104.3. It was the same damn song over and over again on Q104.3, same hendrix, beatles, zeplin, doors, etc, etc. you could listen to that station for one day and hear all it has to offer. The the ads, talk about a cacophony of awful noise. Couldn't stand it. KRock was the same in its later years though I remember remember a time when it didn't suck as much. But again, the ads were awful. Though the best rock station around (90's/00's) was the NJ college station 89.5 WSOU, Seton Hall's Pirate Radio. Hard Rock, Punk, Hard core, Metal, etc. Awesome station if you could receive it, almost impossible to listen to in a car. I listened via hooking the roof antenna to an FM amplifier and then to my Harmon Kardon receiver I rescued from the trash and repaired. I'd to tune in, run a cassette on record and mix down the songs I liked later on. Another treat used to be this DJ, a woman with a thick european accent who played black and death metal on monday nights, Monday Night Mayhem. Discovered so many great bands from that station. Never got old, never played out the same damn metallica song like Krock. Instead you got Pantera, Meshuggah, Megadeth, Gwar, Gojira (Back when they were still Godzilla), Sick of It all, Life of Agony, and a ton more. Then at some point I stopped listening for one reason or another, there was also a big format change too. It's still around though haven't tuned in for years. Now I just keep the radio tuned to WQXR, the public classical radio station. No ads but the pleas for donation can get a bit annoying at times. Though I have donated. Then I get my fill of weird music from roaming around peoples bandcamp profiles. You can find all sorts of stuff on there. Rock, metal, noise, electronic, you name it.

erikschoster 7y ago
You might like WFMU (especially if you're into weirder things) which you should be able to pick up on 91.9FM if you're in the NYC area.
MisterTea 7y ago
> Then at some point I stopped listening for one reason or another, there was also a big format change too. Just realized it was when napster came about plus the format change eliminated a lot of the metal so I got bored with it. Plus I discovered so much more music on napster and even got a bit more into industrial and other electronic genres.

dunnevens 7y ago

XM has a hip-hop station concentrating on what's popular. Also a station concentrating on what's indie and up-and-coming. A station with nothing but rap from 1980-2000something. There's also a modern R&B station which has considerable crossover with the popular hip-hop station. And there's a 70s & 80s funk station which helps people discover the original songs that have been sampled to hell and back. As an added bonus, there's a Korean station which sometimes plays hip hop from there. I also sometimes hear French and Quebecois rap on one of the Canadian stations. That's far more variety than what you'd get from a local radio station. Youtube gives you almost every song ever made. Soundcloud gives you so many great unknown and indie artists. Bandcamp also gives you a huge & worldwide selection of independent rappers, and will help you discover them via their excellent blog. And, for hip hop specifically, there's Datpiff and all the other sites hosting mixtapes. I can understand being nostalgic for the stations of your youth, but it pales considerably compared to what's available now.