15 Minute Rawk Block!

My other title was something like, "You Don't Know Jack FM" but that is a collision between far too many pop-culture references and cliches. Nevertheless, here we are.


Browsing media-savvy, subcultures sites brought me to this article about how vanilla radio is attempting to keep afloat in the receding tide of listeners.


If you exist, you've heard a Jack FM station somewhere on the radio dial. They're the ones who have positioned themselves to play 'whatever they feel like'; meaning they play the songs you'd expect to hear on the mix-tape you made three years ago mixed with a college pub on a Friday night. It's everything you, your friends, and your friends' friends want to hear.


Of course it's trendy to trash radio. But I'm doing it for a legitimate distaste for the medium. I like my favourite songs at certain times. There are songs you never truly tire of and those that you sometimes need to hear. But that's what my iPod, CD-Rs and mix-tapes are for. No broadcast selection can compete with my tailor made playlist.


However, when I do dip my toe into the waters of the new, I'd prefer not to be assaulted by the very loud, very dull, very predictable morning and drive-time DJs. The same goes for advertising. My generation and lower all naturally have an area of our brain that breaks-down, scrambles, and mutes advertising. Therefore hitting us with twenty minutes of non-stop, no-break-for-air advertising only helps kill our love of radio.


Instead, I like the vastness of online, cable, and satellite radio. There's a style and station to suit every taste. Forget the five aisles of Pop-Rock and World music at the music store. If all you like to hear is saxophone mash-ups overtop of a Cuban beat, there's a station out there with over 64 hours of non-stop music for you. If you don't like what you hear, move two kilo-bits-per-second to the left and hear something completely different.


Sure there's niche markets on the traditional bandwidth of frequency modulation, but not at the depth and breadth of what's out there in other mediums. And definitely not without countless ads in between. Online or digital radio isn't without it's share of audible spam, but it isn't de rigueur. If I can go four weeks without hearing a repeat, I'll take the occasional ad for herbal Viagra. I mean, afterall, it's fast acting and I don't need a prescription!


I have no solution to give that would resurrect my option for radio dial over click-wheel. To me, radio has become to music what basic access cable is to TV. Saturated sweetness with no lasting power. Filler between commercials and a barren landscape of white noise. Abandon all hope ye who listen here.

Up next, the Krank FM Crazy Morning Zoo Crew with traffic and sports on every half-hour!