Give this a read!! Great stuff!!

http://www.bubblews.com/news/3298502-liking-music-vs-liking-the-radio

I made a new bubbling buddy today, a newcomer to Bubblews, &PlatandDinky . One of his first posts lamented the fact that ROCK AND ROLL tours seem to be dying in the U.S. (Here's his excellent bubble: www.bubblews.com/news/3294777-rocking-the-usa-alive-or-dead ) I gave him a long, boring and detailed reply, with one of the points being that most people who claim to like music really DON'T, they like the RADIO instead.

What's the difference? If you love the radio you're going to listen to what the radio feeds you and nothing else. It's like being in an elementary school cafeteria: you're going to get your fish sticks and your macaroni and cheese and your pizza and your tough-as-hardtack brownie, and that's IT. People who love music, in contrast, are at a five-star restaurant. They're going to have the finest meal known to man, be it Kobe beef or the most elegant vegetarian dinner, whatever their tastes are. In other words, at school, you're given what you're given. You're there, and they're feeding you. When you have a great meal, however, YOU have to go out, find that restaurant -- which occasionally involves trial and error in finding the proper restaurant -- and discover the varieties of food available to you.

In contrast to the "progressive rock stations" of the 70's that would play Alice Cooper, Led Zeppelin, and Emerson, Lake & Palmer after Tom Waits, Little Feat, and Joan Armatrading, all the radio stations play today are similar-sounding songs by similar-sounding artists, with NO allowance for variety. Today's generation is being spoon fed an elementary school food diet over the radio, accepting it, buying it, going to concerts that cost more than a car payment and paying more for a bottle of water than I paid to see the Eagles either time I saw them in the late 70's.

They then believe this means they love "music." But in reality, they don't. Is that my opinion? No! The music industry itself says that the average person spends less than twenty dollars PER YEAR purchasing music. That's not even TWO ALBUMS!!

Can they say they truly "love music" if they pay more to see ONE movie a week than they do to purchase all of their music EVERY YEAR?

Very interesting. I used to be a programmer at a classic rock station and while I was limited to some degree I tried to mix it up with Lost Classics, midnight albums, etc. but I have grown very tired of classic rock radio these days and no longer listen unless there's nothing else. Most of the time I play my iPod. But getting back to the topic at hand it's spot on. I did find a radio app for WCSX out of Detroit. They have a "deep cuts" station that is simply fantastic. I believe it is stream only but I highly suggest it either thru Tune In Radio or the WCSX app. If that's what they are feeding me then consider me a glutton!

This distinction is a good one and pretty important. I don't think I ever could have put it into words this well though.

I can't tell you the number of people I meet who seem to have cookie-cutter lists of music interests. It's like they're all cribbing off the same sheets. They don't even have that ONE weird outlier that doesn't fit the pattern of the others. It's a strange time.

I used to do a college radio show with a good friend of mine way back when.  We would alternate songs on the program lists.  Though we both had wide tastes in music it was impossible to get him to play anything other than "hits" off an album.  It was like something being on the radio validated it in his musical eyes.  Though he considered himself a big music fan he only ever bought things he heard on the radio.  Anything outside of that didn't exist.  What was funny was when I would play something like the Goo Goo Dolls (Hold Me Up era) and he would scoff at it, only to later on to become a big fan because they eventually started getting radio play.  He was actually hostile to Stone Temple Pilots until somewhere along the way they became an alternative radio darling. Things like that always amused me.

jstate wrote:

I used to do a college radio show with a good friend of mine way back when.  We would alternate songs on the program lists.  Though we both had wide tastes in music it was impossible to get him to play anything other than "hits" off an album.  It was like something being on the radio validated it in his musical eyes.  Though he considered himself a big music fan he only ever bought things he heard on the radio.  Anything outside of that didn't exist.  What was funny was when I would play something like the Goo Goo Dolls (Hold Me Up era) and he would scoff at it, only to later on to become a big fan because they eventually started getting radio play.  He was actually hostile to Stone Temple Pilots until somewhere along the way they became an alternative radio darling.  Things like that always amused me.

Bummer of a mentality to have. So much good music missed out on because radio wasn't even in sniffing distance of its farts.

I run into this all the time as a Pink Floyd fan. Some people claim to be fans, but think the only put out four albums... I can't be the only person who thinks Dark Side of the Moon is overplayed and tired.

Runicen wrote:

jstate wrote:

I used to do a college radio show with a good friend of mine way back when.  We would alternate songs on the program lists.  Though we both had wide tastes in music it was impossible to get him to play anything other than "hits" off an album.  It was like something being on the radio validated it in his musical eyes.  Though he considered himself a big music fan he only ever bought things he heard on the radio.  Anything outside of that didn't exist.  What was funny was when I would play something like the Goo Goo Dolls (Hold Me Up era) and he would scoff at it, only to later on to become a big fan because they eventually started getting radio play.  He was actually hostile to Stone Temple Pilots until somewhere along the way they became an alternative radio darling.  Things like that always amused me.

Bummer of a mentality to have.  So much good music missed out on because radio wasn't even in sniffing distance of its farts.

I run into this all the time as a Pink Floyd fan.  Some people claim to be fans, but think the only put out four albums...  I can't be the only person who thinks Dark Side of the Moon is overplayed and tired.

This is where I got creative in programming. I had a show on Friday nights called The Floyd Fix. I'd play Sheep, One Of these Days, Arnold Layne, you name it we played it even Echoes. It was a great opportunity to have fun while exposing the audience to some deep cuts on a Friday night.

I would have given my left arm (well, maybe the hair off my left arm) in my teens for a radio broadcast like that in my area.

I mean, radio in my area was like the interview I tuned in to for the Black Sabbath reunion where the gal interviewing the band was so clueless that she asked Tony Iommi about the lyric writing process. Tony sounded genuinely confused when he answered with, "Um.. I don't write the lyrics?"

Someone really ought to do a study on the correlation between IQ and music tastes....

Could never understand that mentality or attitude. Some of my top favorite songs are not hits. Heck, some of my favorite bands have little or no hits at all.

What about online radio, or is that not a factor?

Hadley wrote:

What about online radio, or is that not a factor?

Online radio gives you a choice of what bands you want to listen to, or at least plays similar artists. I can tolerate that and have actually found some awesome bands from online radio. This article was strictly about FM radio stations.

Radio USED to be like the cool older brother I never had. You know, the "Hey, you heard this yet? You need to," hook up.

Now, it is and has always been pure advertising, but it's advertising for a monopoly instead of a variety of tastes and there definitely aren't music lovers at the helm to sneak oddballs in anymore.