cleaversoup (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} cleaversoup) wrote,@ 2008-07-12 16:44:00 |
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I Love the Radio
Though there are many reasons to despise modern radio, there are a few reasons to adore it, college radio being my personal favorite. I love the very idea of college radio. Amateur media propelled through the airwaves by the enthusiasm of over-educated fanatics, what’s not to love about it?
Even ignoring the wonders of college radio, even taking into account the suckitude of modern FM (thanks Clear Channel), I still dig the radio. Radio makes me feel in touch, connected to the world around me. On the other end of those radio waves is a human spinning records and scrambling to find the next cd, making mistakes and drinking coffee. Ok, a lot of radio is done by recording, but there are still stations filled with live people and those are the only ones worth listening to. Playing a cd or the ipod in your car is fine, but you’ll never hear anything new. You may not be expecting something you hear on your ipod but you’ll never be surprised by a whole new song.
I mostly listen to the radio in the car, switching over to my shuffle when the music pains me too much. But when I listen to college radio I don’t switch over very often. I’ll grant that I wouldn’t have chosen a lot of the music they play but that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make. I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life in my comfort zone, listening to the same music forever. I want out of my library, out of my tastes, out of my head. I want proof that there is more out than what I have personally heard.
Overwhelmingly large personal collections are beginning to seem like iron chains to me. These personal libraries, of which I have more than my share, are pyrrhic collections. Most people now have unread books on their shelves, unheard albums on their computers and unwatched movies clogging up their space. Even if these libraries have been consumed, aren’t they just already digested material? All right, I’ll let it go for now, but my point in all this is that radio allows some of the benefits or a personal library without the drawbacks.
Thus the computer programs that promise to record live radio to your hard drive seem perverse. Recording live radio as tracks to play back over and over again, hell even time-shifting radio isn’t just missing the point, its throwing out the pearl and keeping the oyster. Radio is supposed to be uncontrolled, consumable only in the moment it is aired. If you can’t let go of the need to control what you hear, then you aren’t a radio listener, you are a collector of empty oysters.
Though there are many reasons to despise modern radio, there are a few reasons to adore it, college radio being my personal favorite. I love the very idea of college radio. Amateur media propelled through the airwaves by the enthusiasm of over-educated fanatics, what’s not to love about it?
Even ignoring the wonders of college radio, even taking into account the suckitude of modern FM (thanks Clear Channel), I still dig the radio. Radio makes me feel in touch, connected to the world around me. On the other end of those radio waves is a human spinning records and scrambling to find the next cd, making mistakes and drinking coffee. Ok, a lot of radio is done by recording, but there are still stations filled with live people and those are the only ones worth listening to. Playing a cd or the ipod in your car is fine, but you’ll never hear anything new. You may not be expecting something you hear on your ipod but you’ll never be surprised by a whole new song.
I mostly listen to the radio in the car, switching over to my shuffle when the music pains me too much. But when I listen to college radio I don’t switch over very often. I’ll grant that I wouldn’t have chosen a lot of the music they play but that’s exactly the point I’m trying to make. I don’t really want to spend the rest of my life in my comfort zone, listening to the same music forever. I want out of my library, out of my tastes, out of my head. I want proof that there is more out than what I have personally heard.
Overwhelmingly large personal collections are beginning to seem like iron chains to me. These personal libraries, of which I have more than my share, are pyrrhic collections. Most people now have unread books on their shelves, unheard albums on their computers and unwatched movies clogging up their space. Even if these libraries have been consumed, aren’t they just already digested material? All right, I’ll let it go for now, but my point in all this is that radio allows some of the benefits or a personal library without the drawbacks.
Thus the computer programs that promise to record live radio to your hard drive seem perverse. Recording live radio as tracks to play back over and over again, hell even time-shifting radio isn’t just missing the point, its throwing out the pearl and keeping the oyster. Radio is supposed to be uncontrolled, consumable only in the moment it is aired. If you can’t let go of the need to control what you hear, then you aren’t a radio listener, you are a collector of empty oysters.
