I Have a Confession to Make
I hate 89.3 The Current.
Not once have I flipped to that station and recognized the song playing. I’m just not an indie rocker like the cool kids.
There. I said it.
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Hee hee….that’s OK, Erica. I just like that their are no commercials and there ARE songs I haven’t heard before. I have purchased a number of really good albums (more electronica than indie rock) from listening and hearing something I like. Don’t be ashamed. I admit that I LIKE KDWeeB. Now that’s embarassing…
Playing the songs I recognize is what I always figure that my MP3 player is for. To me, 89.3 serves to introduce me to new music now that I’m not young and edgy enough to hang with the college crowd.
However, like so many other things, where something’s coolness is defined by its obscurity, I think they tend to revel in the fact that most of what they play is obscure. Yet, among their listeners are quite a few people like Nate and others who like some pop, some mainstream rock, some jazz, all of which are recognizable songs and not obscure.
Unfortunately, trying so hard to be different usually results in a different kind of sameness. I was struck a while back while going through the Target Center just before a concert at a sea of heavy metal concert goers. They were ALL sporting long, greasy hair, black T-shirts, black tennis shoes and the same tattoos. It was as if thousands of people, in their mad rush to rebel against the conformity of mainstream culture just went and created an even more homogenous culture of their own.
True musical diversity (and other diversity) tends not to sound like much of anything in particular. In an actual racially diverse community, race is just part of the background noise and doesn’t need to be pointed out.
I should perhaps clarify that not only have I not heard anything I recognize, I haven’t heard much of anything that I like, either.
It really depends on who’s on the air at the time. It’s been years since I’ve heard such a consistenly inconsistent FM station (if that makes any sense.) I keep it on at work, so if I try, I can get 10 hours a day of radio in. And when the radio is on for that long of a stretch, I found that I need to hear something new. I am So Tired of most rock/pop radio.
When I was more into metal shows, I saw the same homogeny. So I was the guy that wore a bright yellow rayon button-down shirt to Pantera and Slayer shows. I’d mosh too, which is how I wrecked that shirt!
The mood on the Current completely changes from acoustic singer/songwriter folk stuff to the latest electronica and some harder stuff at night. I can say that Mary Lucia is in a rut and can put away Moby’s “Play” album any second now. But she wowed me with James Brown’s “Sex Machine” today.
…that sounded dirtier than I meant. Wow!
I have no actual evidence to prove the following, just hazy memories: A site documented all songs played on The Current and I threw the data from about 30 days (mid May to mid June) into Excel and performed some geekery. I found they played over 3000 unique songs in 30 days, meaning they played an average of 100 unique songs each day, or over 4 per hour.
I think it’s the perfect addition to our local radio scene, since if I want to hear songs I already know, I throw on a CD or play an MP3. I never want to hear the deejay banter.
The Current won my heart when I heard MIA’s ‘Galang’ in my car and realized it was not a CD but an actual station playing her.