Todays Raido Stations suck


Is it just me, or does todays Radio suck?
When I was a teenager FM was cool, it had laid back D,jays and they played cool new music. That's were I first heard Alex Harvey, Hawkwind,Atomic Rooster,Zappa,The amboy dukes,
Robin Trower,Roxy music,BOC,Captain Beyond,Audience,
Bowie,Steely Dan,etc.

The AM of that day used to be Hit Radio, and played the top hits of the day.

FM today has become Hit radio, with a lot of cookie cutter stations all playing the same old hits, with a few of those old fm classic hits as well.

Does it only bug me, that they only play the one hit off the LP over and over again. When in fact the lp had even better tunes on it, but they never play them.

Recently with the advent of eBay, I have been able to collect a lot of rare and Great music that I never new existed before.

When my friends here the new tunes I have They get the same Idea that I always get, to start a new radio station that plays this unknown treasure. As well as the songs like "Candys gone bad" off of the Golden Earring lp with Radar love on it, you know the one.

You know what I'm talking about, am I alone here.


I must state that I live in a smaller town now, but we can still pick up the Jacksonville Florida stations.
Does this kind of practice go on all over the country?

The new music of today no longer interests me with Rap and the Rock of today all sounds the same, with only minor exceptions like Radiohead.

WHAT do you think, is their some stations that I could pickup on the internet that would satisfy my craving?

would you like to be able to get in you car and tune the radio to a station like the one I described?

128x128rockinroni
Oh, I'd bet whatever kids listen to while their teens will be playing in their retro-minds and considered, in some way, classic 35 years from now. While I personally think you are overstating Top 40 1965, there is no doubt it is better than present Top 40, and that my initial corresponding post would be better off deleted.
Over the last year I have driven through many states for various reasons. Radio is incredibly homogeneous across the country and can be divided into 4 groups; AM talk radio, FM Country, FM Classic Rock and FM Pop - the latter having a couple of sub-categories. The problem is finding a station not built to "pander" to a target audience.
Back in the '70s I remember listening to an "album rock" station that would play anything from the Moody Blues to The Cars or from Janis Joplin to REO Speedwagon. It was the "rock genre" but not sliced into "Classic, lite, Grunge , Alt", etc, etc. Stations that painted with a broader stroke like this were able to expose someone to a lot of different styles within a genre and were also able to aviod repeating the same artists songs over and over again! Today all sounds the same because, as so many others have pointed out, the media conglomerates have emphasized (too much) what their marketing departments tell them, all in order to have "documentation" to help in their sales of advertising.
I say bring back the radio station who turns you on to all types of artisis, SPONSORS LOCAL music events with LOCAL artists AND has DJ's that actually can tell you about the music you are about to (or just) heard! Media conglomerates owning a bunch of stations doesn't bother me as much as some people but I just wish the people at the top would wake up and allow the station managers to call thier own shots in their local market. This could make radio cool again IMO. Regards, Tony
Well said Zaikesman, 1965 AM radio (all we had) delivered the goods. Yes, we suffered with commercials and reverberated Disc Jockeys. We had to endure if we wanted to hear:

the Byrds
the Zombies
the Kinks
the Animals
Them
the Rolling Stones
Bob Dylan
the Beach Boys
James Brown
the Yardbirds
the Moody Blues
the Supremes
the Beatles.....just to name a few. Yes, radio today sucks hard.

Still buying new music, RichardZ
A lot of kids arent exposed to good music thorugh the radio, but young kids that actually want to make music are being exposed to whatever they want to hear.

The internet allows anyone to find out about any artist they want to, whether they heard them on the radio, or live, or from a friend, or from AudiogoN, or from another group's mailing list, or from XM or Sirius, or from Kazaa. You don't need a DJ to tell you about an artist today, you go look at their website, or the website a fan made about them.

Radio is no longer the only way to spread music. I have gleaned 99% of my music collection from non radio sources, most of which were listed above.

Kids are still making great music and radio has sucked for the last 20 years.

I am not in the least bit worried.

There is more accesible music available today then there was 20 years ago.
Hey Ohlala---don't retreat. I love it when someone who is eloquent can take folks on.

I just got back from a very good friend's home. He lives about two hours from me. His daughter graduated from High School so I went down for the event. The point being that her 16 year old brother is developing his interest in the guitar and it turns out that he has been waiting for some time for me to pay them a visit. While anyone who knows me can see I would never buy his music, I can appreciate it. He put a DVD with some group called 'CORN' --or was it KORN?--anyway it seems he couldn't wait to get my opinion of the group. These guys played on their feet, bent over at 90 degrees at the hip. The vocals were abusive---the kids were swaying and shouting and loving it. My friend's son asked me what I thought. I said "Sweet Jesus---that guy on bass is one of the best I have heard in a long time" The kid jumped up into the air, slapped me a high-five and yelled "Yeah, yeah, I knew YOU(!) would see it!" As a matter of fact the bass player is really good. But as too many of our parents were distracted by Alice Cooper's dress, this kid's parents couldn't get past what the group looked like. I really don't care for the music, but folks, there is plenty of talent out there. We are just stuck in here!!