Radio Sucks

[stomachmonkey]

Left Dallas Friday early evening and ran down to Houston to tour Rice Saturday morning. Nice campus, small, intimate, but a bit too much so. Not sure it's a good fit for the girl so relegated to maybe a third pick.

Pulled out of Houston around noon on Saturday (sorry fellow pelicanheads who I would have liked to have had a beer with) and headed over to NOLA for a Tulaine tour Monday morning. She really liked Tulaine and so did we so it's now tied for 1st pick with UT,

Pulled out of NOLA again around noon on Monday and got back into Dallas just before 8 last night.

Corporate radio sucks and has for a long time, I'd forgotten how bad it is.

20 hours of driving and I think I heard the same 30 songs every day on 20 different radio stations.

About 4-5 years ago I had to replace the battery on the Mazda so naturally had to redo the radio presets.

Started scanning and hit this new listener sponsored station KXT, 91.7 out of Dallas.

Listen Live | KXT 91.7

They were playing some really good stuff, lots of rare deep cuts, upcoming acts and local unknowns.

It's now and has been for years the only preset in any of our cars and the only time we change the station is when it goes out of range.

If you are tired of traditional radio and like hearing new stuff give them a listen.

If you are a single genre listener it's not for you but if you have broader tastes then you will most likely dig it.

It's a good mix to keep you listening all the time and since it's listener sponsored no commercials.

In the last hour they've played

B0RNS

The Stranglers

Passion Pit

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Dylan

Jamestown Revival

Leon Bridges

Faces

Even some Gogar at the top of the hour

[SoCal911T]

I haven't listened to the radio here in years but last time I checked, it still sucked big time.

[GH85Carrera]

I gave up on commercial broadcast radio 6 or 7 years ago. The local radio station that played classic rock was not too bad with the commercials. They had the same station manager for many years. They constantly bragged how they had one of the largest music libraries possible. The problem is they played the same 25 or 30 songs every single stinking day. Not a day went pat without hearing the god awful Manfred Man Earth Band version of Blinded by the Light. Every single day. I gave up and started listening to Pandora. I do the pay for version and after a few months of thumbs up or down on songs they almost never try to slip in a dud. I have discovered many new bands I never would have heard and songs I did not know existed. I have Pandora running all day at work. In my garage at home if I am out there, Pandora is playing. I can play it in either of my cars but usually I have a thumb drive of my collection of 16 gig of music playing in random mode.

Broadcast radio is dead as far as I am concerned. RIP.

[Oh Haha]

We have a great local station for rock/metal. I don't do ITunes or any of those pay for it things.

They play the top rock tunes but also showcase some cool up and coming bands. It's not a classic rock format but they do throw in some Zeppelin and Aerosmith once in awhile.

They really promote local and regional acts as well.

[SweetWaterSurprise]

If I didn't have satellite radio I'd lose my mind on long drives. Especially when travelling in my RV.

[jcommin]

I have been a loyal WXRT listener since the early 70's and I have liked their format for years. I kinda gave up on Rock/Roll in the late 70's early 80's. I think that is a generational thing - you tend to gravitate to the music you heard in your teens/early 20s.

WXRT has many features: new music, jazz trans fusion, blues breakers, Sat morning flashback, etc. Most of their DJ's have been there a long time.

While they try to keep the format fresh, I find some of the more current music repetitive. I can hear a song on my way to work in the morning and here the same song on the trip home. I'm probably a grumpy boomer, but today's music just doesn't do it for me.

At home I probably have an 8000 song library on my computer not including vinyl - and at times 8000 songs isn't enough.

[Jolly Amaranto]

I have XM satellite in my car and my wife has Sirius. The sound quality that Sirius delivers is horrible on most stations (with the classical music station being the exception). The higher notes sound all "watery" and distorted. Don't know if it is a different digital format or what. Still, I prefer it to the incessant commercials on most broadcast stations.

[wdfifteen]

I gave up on music radio 20 years ago. Even in the 80s I was so busy and preoccupied with career the sound on the radio was just noise. I mostly listen to "talk" radio on NPR these days - On point, Here and Now, Planet Money, Left Right and Center, Car talk, etc.
There used to be an interesting show on our local public station call World Café, where new music was introduced with some context, not just, "here's a new song." I guess I just like a story.
I tune in Limbaugh if I'm driving alone between 12 and 1 PM (when there is some uninteresting local show on my public station) just for laughs. The guy is such a jackass he cracks me up, but he pisses my wife off.
As far as I'm concerned, commercial radio is mostly a wasteland.
edit:
Come to think of it, when we're traveling the stations with the most reliable reception are conservative talk radio and christian radio. It perplexes my wife, but I enjoy listening to christian radio if the speaker is just talking and not screaming at me. I don't know why.

[rusnak]

I need to find some good radio (think high-energy happy) for background effect.

I'm thinking about trying out Pandora for Business. I went to a restaurant which was playing I Heart Radio (I asked about it) and it was very good.

[scottmandue]

Satilite radio is cool but I can't bring myself to pay for radio (I do pay $4 a month for Pandora)
We have two "listener supported" radio stations I listen to a lot... but one is jazz and the other is classical (of course there is the sucky one week a year when they have a pledge drive).
If I want rock N roll we have at least four or five rock stations here in Smell Lay I can bounce around with.

[rusnak]

I need to play music maybe 18 hrs a day at the new retail store. We start in January, so I have maybe 5 or 6 months to sort it out. I have no idea how many speakers we will be running, but I told the sound guy to design a system so clear, you can see the music.

So this is a timely thread. Need to find "non corporate" radio that is offensive to the least amount of people possible. Like 80s music: benign, happy, sweet and more happy. Stuff that you'd listen to in the car on a road trip

[LWJ]

I like to stream radio from afar. WWOZ in NOLA is a favorite. Sort of a challenge to find the good stuff.

[rusnak]

XM and Sirius both suck, sound quality wise.

[wdfifteen]

Originally Posted by rusnak

Stuff that you'd listen to in the car on a road trip

Or an elevator..

One of our favorite songs is the video of Wilco doing Impossible Germany. We were devastated to hear it in an elevator.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by rusnak

I need to play music maybe 18 hrs a day at the new retail store. We start in January, so I have maybe 5 or 6 months to sort it out. I have no idea how many speakers we will be running, but I told the sound guy to design a system so clear, you can see the music.

So this is a timely thread. Need to find "non corporate" radio that is offensive to the least amount of people possible. Like 80s music: benign, happy, sweet and more happy. Stuff that you'd listen to in the car on a road trip

Try KXT.

You can get the stream a variety of ways.

Listen Live | KXT 91.7

Costs you nothing to open the web page and listen for a while.

Or check out their current playlist for an idea of what they played today. You can even click each song for a quick snippet if you are unfamiliar with the artist.

KXT Playlists | KXT 91.7

[JavaBrewer]

I thought most of the broadcast stations got assimilated by Clear Channel (or similar)? Driving with my daughter who is a constant station changer there have been many times that stations are playing the same song or same artist at the same time.

I listen to FKM-BFM (100.7) morning show DSC (Dave, Shelly, and Chainsaw) for my 20 minute drive to work, 95.5 KLOS when in range (Los Angeles), and Pandora. That's it.

[rusnak]

The first person from corporate who tells me to play their muzak is going to get his face punched in by me.

[rusnak]

Originally Posted by stomachmonkey

Try KXT.

You can get the stream a variety of ways.

Listen Live | KXT 91.7

Costs you nothing to open the web page and listen for a while.

Or check out their current playlist for an idea of what they played today. You can even click each song for a quick snippet if you are unfamiliar with the artist.

KXT Playlists | KXT 91.7

^ Added to Bookmarks. I'll give them a listen when my crappy bandwidth opens up.

Another thing, I think streaming music is where it's at. I'm trying to get Comcast to bring cable TV to my side of the street, so I'm going to see if we can add them to the joint trench with PG&E, etc. Everything is going to home run into a data room under the stairs, with a Hitachi mini split to provide cooling.

[flipper35]

Originally Posted by rusnak

XM and Sirius both suck, sound quality wise.

And content wise. We had a year subscription. I would pay up to $15 per year for it. Not more than that. I can stream something or plug a flash drive full of music into the system if I don't like what is OTA.

[vash]

i used to have Sirius just to listen to Stern. i got over it when the cost kept creeping up on me. now i just listen to the radio.

i'm lucky my morning commute is so short, but our early morning radio is not that bad. fairly entertaining. regular radio? out in the boonies i have a classic rock station and a country station..i listen to both for the noise.