Essayist #2 rescheduled for next week. It's gonna be a doozy.
The Washington Post posits several reasons for the abrupt format switch of popular DC-area station WHFS-FM from alternative rock to Spanish-language-pop (a wtf? moment that spun many heads) in its Tuesday article "Rock, Rolling Over". What it fails to point out is the concept that formatting itself is, or soon will be dead.
What person do you know that only listens to rock? Or Jazz? Or Hip-Hop? I personally have a wide selection of music that transcends genre. It's an open secret that the majority of hip-hop customers are white. It's an even bigger secret that yes, black people really do listen to rock (I have a neighbor as dark as Jesse Jackson who thinks that the White Stripes are the absolute bomb). We don't have 6 presets on our car radios just to avoid commercials: we-a like-a da variety.
So why does our radio keep segregating us, playing the same song twice every hour until we can't stand it any longer and treating the 10 or 12 artists they regularly play like they're The Only Music That Matters? Why can't we play Beck after Led Zeppelin, and follow it up with De La Soul and the Roots and then maybe Interpol or something? Are you telling me nobody would listen to that?
Cause that's what people do on their mix-tapes, CD-R's and iPods.
2 comments:
My boss picked up one of those personal XM radio players at CES a few weeks ago. I have a sort of problem with it (and the "music" stations that come with cable/satellite TVs) - that the music is divided by genre. Sure, they don't just play the Top 40 or 100 of those genres, they play b-sides and mix it all up, but what I want is some kind of giant smart music playing device..
Like if I could say, "Ok, XM Radio, I like these 50 stations. Now pick one station where a song is just beginning and when the song is over, move to a new station on my list where a song is just beginning."
I'd get the variety I want without being subjected to the crap I don't want to hear. I'd even permit them to play short "This is XM Radio!" messages while waiting for the beginning of the next song.
- Jaro
That speaks to the same problem: how do you divide up music for presentation and avoid monotony? I don't know that it can be done. To hear exactly what you want, you have to program it beforehand, and then you lose the spontenaity.
It is a puzzlement!
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