Radio Blues

I remember the first time I realized how much I loved the radio. I was a husky 7 year old sitting in the back of the family mini-van, gazing into the windows of passing cars with a child-like boldness that gets suppressed in adolescence. “Black Hole Sun” was playing on the local Alt-Rock station. I loved that song. Life was good.

As I gazed through the windows of the cars driving beside ours, one in particular caught my eye. It was a woman and a man. I assumed they were married. What was interesting was that though I could see their mouths moving, their speech didn’t seem natural. Their mouths were moving in unison. It didn’t make sense until I realized something. They weren’t talking. They were singing! And to my further amazement, not only were they singing, they were singing “Black Hole Sun”! We were listening to the same station!

Obviously, as a 7 year old, I didn’t realize the value of the implicit human connection our two cars shared, but the memory stuck. It’s as vivid as ever now.

As a digital music distributor I’ve seen the methods in which people consume music change dramatically in a short period of time. Music is truly personal now. Whereas the phrase “soundtrack of our lives” was cliche forever, these days it’s a reality. With the plethora of music services available now, you can personalize your music experience down to the mood, activity, stage in life, anything! It really is an amazing development. You can truly be your own DJ….

Now, who actually has time for all of this? Who is going to sit there and pick songs one by one to add to a playlist? Then take the time to update that playlist when they get bored with the current roster of songs? Anyone? No. Nobody. Or at least not many people. That takes a lot of work. What’s the next step then? Choosing a curated playlist of course. Easy! They’re organized by mood, activity, artist, genre, whatever you need. If they’re well managed, possibly sponsored by the music service itself, they’ll be updated constantly with the newest and “best” songs. What else could you ask for?

Well…. a lot, actually. Human connection, for one. Listening to music alone and knowing exactly what you’re listening to and why you’re listening to it is inherently boring! You can only do it for so long. It becomes elevator music. White noise. (Though some like that I know) Humans crave spontaneity! This is where I look back on that fond memory as a 7 year old in my mini van and smile.

It wasn’t necessarily the fact that “Black Hole Sun” was playing, or that the people in the car next to ours were singing along. It was that I truly realized thousands, possibly millions of people were listening and emotionally responding to this song at the SAME EXACT TIME. We, as listeners within the range of a station satellite, were experiencing this thing together. This is the power of radio.

Now that I’m older, involved in digital music distribution where there are thousands of options for getting your music “out there”, I see why such a premium is still placed on radio. Why it’s so hard to break into. Why it’s still dominated by majors via a neo-payola model. It’s fucking special!

Remember that scene in “That Thing You Do” when they first hear their new song on the radio for the first time? Their excitement is palpable. They’re not excited because their song is on a featured on-demand streaming playlist where an unknown number of people might hear it. They’re excited because people are hearing it! Right at that moment…

Now, I don’t have an answer for how we can take the power of terrestrial radio and translate it to the digital world. I don’t know if it could ever be translated directly. But there’s gotta be something better, right? There’s gotta something more than on-demand playlists. An unexplored gray area.

If you have an answer let me know….

In the meantime I’ll keep tuning, streaming, buying, curating. I love music, so it’s all good. :)