Entertainment For Lively Minds
Damn That Radio Song
We've been told a lot over the years by the Word - both podcast and blog - about how commercial radio works. I always thought it was a bit weird that a computer chose all the songs, making sure that the listener was subjected to a string of hits, each as familiar as the last. As someone who never really listens to music radio, I used to wonder if this could really be so. No longer.
We have painters in our office today and they are listening to some radio station, I kno not wot, dribbling out an utterly uninspiring stream of familiar pop and rock hits from the last fifty years. Many of them are good songs - right now it's 'Get Back' by the HJH - but it's the calculated predictability that is so irritating. The policy appears to be 'Do Not Surprise the Listener'.
Its spongey blandness is driving me insane. How can something so utterly insipid inspire such murderous rage?
- More from Con Coleman.
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the problem is that you're "listening" too much
for most people, daytime radio is on in the background to fill the emptiness, and it works for a lot of people who want to pay attention to the job in hand. I know that whenever I'm doing any sort of work about the house and I want music to accompany the activity, it tends to be 'comfort' music; it's not the time to be firing into the stuff marked 'challenging'. As I've said before, I'll tend to kick off with something like Superstition by Stevie Wonder and then click 'genius' on the iPod. If I just kicked it off at random to start anywhere, I'm not sure I want to be 'surprised'.
Commerical radio takes that to the nth degree. I agree with you, Con, it's utterly ruthless and utterly soulless, but the listenership numbers tell their own tale. Besides, if you ran a corner shop or a barbers and you've a radio on, the chances are that your customers, who only pop in for a few minutes would rather something 'simple' as well.
It's why during the day, even 'national' broadcasters tend to stick with safe music; it's only after the bloke presenting the drivetime show has hung up his headphones that anything 'offbeat' tends to crop up.
I agree
The only commercial station I really use is Classic FM. Most Saturday evenings the GLW and I are sitting down to a meal. We don't want to listen to chat. I'm tired of my own taste. Therefore we put on Classic FM for what I think they call "Smooth Classics". That means The Lark Ascending, The Pearl Fishers duet, Mahler's Adagietto and so forth. There's nothing remotely adventurous or stimulating about it but there isn't really meant to be. It's simply supposed to be servicable and, for the 30 minutes or so we have it on, it's fine.
Absolute 80s
Discovered this on my DAB recently, and as I have one of these in the car find myself listening more and more to it. The presenters (when they exist) are terrible, the adverts intrusive and annoying, but I know the words to every song they play.... which is why I've stuck with it so far.
It's background music - you're not meant to listen to it.
Makes sense
I understand - it's just aural wallpaper. Because there isn't normally any music in my office, the appearance of a radio playing tunes does mean that my ears want to listen to it.
Thankfully, the painters have now departed and the only sound is the clicking of keyboards, the whirr of the fan, and Stornoway singing 'Zorbed' in my head.
What you have failed to realise is that
the painters will have tuned to '1 oh 4 point 6 Radio Bosh Bosh' which deliberately plays a stream of songs that have not been heard 80 million times by members of the painting & decorating trade who normally live & work in Kraków. Those guys are getting a sound education in basic western popular music; it's not aimed at those of us who were actually here during the last fifty years.
In general I think you're right except,
when I had some Polish builders in recently, one noticed I had a digital radio and asked if they could listen to it. Why not? So when I came back they were listening Polish Radio London. I only realised it wasn't a UK station when the music stopped and the DJ talked in Polish. The music was actually Polish, but sounded like so much of the stuff we get here, that I had thought it was British at first - I think Keane in particular must have been a big influence there. So the catching up with Western popular music is pretty well advanced.
There's probably a Word article waiting to be written, following on Eamonn Forde's this month about the biggest acts in the world, about which bands or styles have been the most influential outside their own countries. I would guess, based on nothing in particular, that heavy metal has probably exported to most parts of the world.
Tinpot Commercial Radio.
Can't abide it. The only commercial station I listen to is Planet Rock. Lots of heavy rock you've heard before. Like every other commercial station, but with a niche market. Saying that, they do play a fair bit of new stuff later in the evening, but by that time I'm listen to Radders and Maconie.
Shooting fish in a barrel
If you hate the music, it's a fair guess that the station is not aimed at you, and has therefore got it right.
Who said everyone had to like everything ?
Oh for Radio 1
of the 70's and 80's when we were considered grown up enough to listen to something outside our demographic and decide if it was any good or not. I actually long to hear a "Happy Talk" or "Shaddup Your Face" or even "Private Investigations" but what do I know?