Radio radio

Coming out of college I was interested in getting into radio programming. I held the music director and program director positions, among others, at the campus station. I devoured Radio & Records and kept tabs on industry mags like Billboard and the usual suspects (Rolling Stone, Spin) in music publications. I was interested in what had come before, but I was also interested in what was new and exciting.

I listened to the radio quite a bit. Even before I had any aspirations to get into the business I can remember listening to the radio waiting to hear a new song from a favorite band or, if luck would have it, an entire new album at midnight before it was in stores. For that matter, I recall being in junior high and taping songs off the radio, usually trying to get versions without DJs talking over the intros and hitting posts.

When I got an iPod a couple years ago I almost stopped listening to music on the radio entirely, although in all fairness I had already been ignoring the medium in favor of CDs for awhile before then. Station playlists were ridiculously small and resistant to anything slightly unusual or untested. My tastes went more indie too. Still, there were some circumstances in which the radio had to be relied upon to hear something desired, whether it was yet to be released or an old favorite. You just couldn't lug around days' worth of music in your pocket.

No longer. The new (and perpetually delayed) Chinese Democracy by Guns N' Roses and Kanye West album are streaming online prior to release. (For what it's worth, I'm kind of surprised that the GNR record isn't terrible.) If my iPod could hold a charge long enough, its current contents would take almost eighteen days to play before repeating anything.

Advertisements, movies, music blogs, and, in my observation, video games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band have become better avenues for breaking new songs and repopularizing catalog tunes. Granted, the radio industry has consolidated ownership and standardized their product to the point of hastening their obsolescence.

Do under-30s even pay attention to the radio? It used to be that one's favorite station suggested something about the listener just like any other brand preference. What is the future of radio when we can easily program our own personal, portable stations without commercials or inane between-songs patter? Is losing what used to be community voices important?