When I was in the Twin Cities over Christmas my friend Nate pointed out The Current, which is a listener-sponsored popular music station run by Minnesota Public Radio. I had been bitching about my old favorite, Cities 97.1, going all Clear Channel. F’in Clear Channel, making everybody conform.
When I say “popular music” I mean they play music that normal people like listening to, including all the weird tracks on discs that people like but aren’t Clear Channel-approved. Lots of requests, and good taste on the part of the DJs. They have a CD-quality stream along with the more standard 32k mono crap that every other station broadcasts. Aside from that, though, the one feature I absolutely require in a radio station is an up-to-the-second playlist, so when I hear something I like I can go check it out. F-yeah. I don’t know how many times I’ve had to sit and wait for the DJ to say what the song they just played was. That is, if they actually say it. Arggh! The worst was Bruce Hornsby’s “Gonna Be Some Changes Made” that I heard on the radio in San Francisco. I loved it, had no idea who it was. I sat in my car for 15 f’in minutes waiting for them to say who the f- it was. I ended up asking one of the people at Amoeba Music (best music store ever).
Okay, so anyhow, the only reason I thought of all of this is that they just played Semisonic’s “DND,” which always makes me laugh when I hear it.
Oh, and as my last comment, thank god the RIAA or whoever it was dropped the lawsuits against the online lyric archives. Since my episode in SF with Mr. Hornsby I’ve taken to trying to remember one line from a song, and Googling it in quotes, plus ‘lyrics’. F- play lists!