I used to listen to 100.5 FM a lot. It's a Sacramento radio station that does what a buddy of mine calls "mainstream alternative." It's 1 of 5 stations on my presets in my car. The music selection is passably good and the morning guys are funny.
I rarely ever tune in to that station in the evening on the way home - there are a few public affairs programs I like on KDVS, and if I'm not in the mood to be empowered or depressed, I jack in my iPod and float home from work on my own compilations. But in the morning, I almost always find myself at 100.5 because I like the morning guys. Lately, though, I've been noticing that my morning talk show has become a little. . . quiet. I can go whole car trips to work without hearing anything but music and commercials (probably about a 50/50 split). I've found myself turning the radio off in disgust on more than one occasion.
The music has changed some too. They were always horrible about repeated the popular new tune over and over again, but this is different. It seems like these days the songs they're playing are less music than they are commercials for albums that the record companies want you to buy. Does anyone else feel like you turn on the radio and all you get is RCA Recording trying to program you into thinking that Kelly Clarkson is actually a talented musician?
I'm not one to damn something just because it's popular. Whether a hundred thousand people love something or only two people has no real bearing on what I'll think of it. Avoiding something just because it's "mainstream" is about as stupid as liking something just because it's popular. I would hope that we, as a culture, are a little more advanced than a 7th grade playground.
That being said, I can't remember the last time I heard something new on the radio and thought, "Hey, that's a good song. Who does this?" Most of what I'm hearing is the sort of stuff that's going to be utterly forgotten in a year's time.
For a lark, log on this site and see how many of the stations on your radio's presets are owned by the same corporation. I just found out that 3 of my 5 are run by Viacom, who also owns a slew of television networks including CBS, UPN, MTV, VH1, Comedy Central, Showtime, and Nickelodeon, on top of well over 150 radio stations and a good supply of book publishing companies as well. Stop and think about how much of the information that reaches you everyday is coming from the same source. Remarkable, isn't it?
Here's another one. While listening to the radio the other day, the DJs were discussing a song on the album just released by James Blunt. He seems to be the newest edition to the play-his-stuff-over-and-over-again-until-the-listeners-can't-stand-it-anymore list. I can't tell you what I think of his work because I only heard one song that the man has done. It's a catchy tune, but you're bound to catch anything after hearing it 40 times. The DJs were saying that they really liked track 4 off the album, but they weren't allowed to play that track yet. The recording company just wanted them to play track 2. This isn't a preview of an upcoming album, folks. It's been available for purchase since October. And the DJs aren't allowed to play it. Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't they called disc jockeys because they get to move the discs around?
Does anyone besides me have a problem with this?
When did this start to happen and how did it ever get this bad? What am I supposed to do? Start humming crap set to a bad baseline and go buy the album by the next star of American Idol like a good little drone? I don't think so. What are my alternatives? Ranting to the ten people who read my blog? (Hi Mom.)
I already rejected my TV. I suppose I could cut out radio and movies too and live like a hermit in a digital-proof cave.
I guess I can count one blessing, and it is this: even if the mainstream media has lost it's freedom of speech in the name capitalistic progress, I still have the right to say what I want to say. Having no market share, I'm fairly harmless. And there are a lot of other people out there in this largely un-patrolled internet having their say and posting their version of the news, be it music or war or the many marriages of Brittany Spears.
What really concerns me is the disappearance of an unbiased, mainstream media -- on any subject -- and even more so, our apparent failure to notice as our sources of information blink out of existence one after the other.
Footnote: The song I referenced at the top of this entry is by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. It's called "The Last DJ," released on an album of the same name in 2002. My dad turned me on to it. Obviously I didn't hear it on the radio.