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In today's day and age, I still think Conventional AM FM Radio is still the best

12K views 74 replies 21 participants last post by  tvmaster 
#1 ·
Growing up, we never had all this fancy new technologies. If we liked music, we "listened to the radio" or if we were lucky enough to own cable, we watched music videos on "MuchMusic" (or MusicPlus if you lived in Montreal).
When you liked an artist, you went out and bought the album whether it be Vinyl Record, Audio Cassette tape, or Compact Disc. I get it that technology has advanced and those forms of media are obsolete, yes I agree somewhat.

What I do not get is people in the same generation as me (30's to 40's) who complain they have "NO MONEY" who are struggling to keep a steady job, and complaining they can not buy a house because the price is out of reach for them, yet they spend their money in a heartbeat on expensive cellphone plans, and add money on top of that for music streaming services like spotify, google music, youtube audio, tidal, or satellite radio such as sirius xm.

These young kats like to listen to music all the time like they are addicted to it especially when they do get a very professional job where they are working in an office type environment they put on their headphones and blast the music so loud that they think they are in XTC. Then they want to play their playlist while doing a road trip to the USA and complain about the expensive roaming charges on their cellphone bill.

Call me old fashioned but I still use old technologies but doesnt mean i refuse to use newer ones, I buy music online instead of streaming it, cus i can play it as many times over and over and not have to worry about the steaming site pull it down and compllain about it. plus i can play it even when im doing a road trip in the states and it wont use my data or roaming cus ive downloaded it either on my phone, or a usb flash drive or burnt it to CD-RW. and lastly when I was poor and in-between jobs I did not splurge on all this fancy schmancy technologies, i simply sacrificed for a bit until I was stable enough to pick up where i left.
 
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#2 ·
If you're paying for Spotify and such, you can download your playlists to your phone while on Wi-Fi; you don't have to use cellular data if you don't want to. Even with my good data plan I still often do that with my larger playlists.

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#3 ·
and people do not realize this but since spotify you do not own the rights to the song just the rights to stream it, don't be surprised when songs on your playlist disappear, yes it happens often and a lot of my colleagues always complaining about it, if you like the song so much you could "purchase it" heck ive seen songs for as cheap as 49 cents on the google play music store, tis not a heavy price to pay.
 
#4 ·
Really? I think today's AM and FM stations are terrible. There is too much advertising, too much corporate influence, too much government bureaucratic interference, not enough variety because playlists are prepackaged and too short, too much emphasis on singles and big name groups, too much syndicated programming and the DJs are generally bland and inexperienced. You have to listen to what the program director thinks is the lowest common denominator for the intended audience when he/she decides to play it or what they are forced to play by the government, advertisers and management. Modern AM and FM radio is designed for advertisers first. Audiences are a distant consideration. Need I go on.

Compared to buying CDs, Spotify is a bargain. As often as not, there are one or two singles on a CD produced in a studio using a big name producer and professional session musicians but the rest is lower quality filler. I used to spend $20 a week on CDs. After spending $10,000 over 10 years, I ended up with over 1000 CDs and 10,000 songs. Maybe half of those I still like and there are even fewer I regularly listen to. Spotify has over 4,000,000 songs and thousands of artists. I can listen to what I want when I want, make personalized playlists, choose from a thousands of prepackaged playlists and skip songs I don't want to hear. Just how is the bland, repetitive, corporate influenced, designed for advertisers instead of listeners stuff played on AM and FM better?

Spotify is not perfect. I miss hearing a good DJ. The DJs on local AM and FM are seldom good so that's a wash. There are some critical artists and songs missing from Spotify. There are orders of magnitude more missing from local AM and FM though. I find Spotify's playlists too repetitive and too focused on popular singles. It's still much better than AM or FM in that regard.

If I want to listen to radio with better variety, designed for listeners with a minimal of advertising that is hosted by professional, experienced DJs I head over to SiriusXM. I've been listening to radio for 60 years so I've seen a lot of changes, good and bad. There have been very successful AM and FM stations that catered to audiences and what they wanted. I have been lucky enough to listen to some of them. They have almost all been neutralized by government and corporate interference. Most of the time, especially now, they are just a vehicle to give station managers and corporate CEOs a bigger bonus each year.
 
#5 ·
So tell me one thing, do you listen to music in the English Language only? if you answered YES then you are being biased towards the rest of the population who immigrated here from abroad and sometimes english is not their first language, and they may not know or like any of the current music that is on Spotify. Remember, spotify only caters to one demographic, where as Am/FM caters to more. Spotify is only music, where AM/FMis music, news, headlines, sports, talk radio, and multi-lingual radio programs too. A lot of people seem to only care about music, and seem to forget about everything else.

Theres a lot more than just music out there and if people just care about music and just the music they like, then they are kind of selfish, then by all means enjoy your spotify. But lets get one thing strait spotify will never be a replacement for Am/Fm radio until people like you and others realize theres more to am fm radio than just music, Am/Fm also has emergency alerts based on location, hm, I do not think spotify has that. Am/fm radio works in the event of a power outage by a portible radio device, which operates on batteries, spotify is quite complex and requires internet connectivity, yes maybe it works offline but needs internet initally to work and good luck using spotify when camping in the forrest in rural northern ontario with no hydro and lack of cell signal your gonna waht? just care about listening to drake all day long or gonan forget about music for a change and worry about surviving incase a severe weather or storm happens.

So spend your money wiseley
 
#6 ·
In the first post, you only mentioned music. Spotify has music, charts and playlists for over 60 countries and ethnicity. There is a variety of international music in my playlists. Spotify also has a variety of podcasts.

Haven't tried it but I wouldn't be surprised if Spotify worked with wireless data on portable devices when the power is out. They may also work with wifi provided the router has emergency power backup. (Mine does.) Emergency alerts and news are available on smartphones. If I'm stranded out in the bush, an emergency alert won't save me. I'll probably be listening to this drake.

Some SiriusXM players and most vehicle SiriusXM radios work when the power is out. They also have a variety of talk and news stations. The quality of programming on SiriusXM greatly exceeds what exists on most local stations. SiriusXM works in almost all North American locations.

$10/mo isn't going to cause financial hardship.
 
#7 ·
I do not have a problem with sirius xm, one of my cars came with a FREE subscription for a year, which was nice. xm and sirius have way more american content than canadian, im not saying canada is not there but is severly restricted. if you want to know whats going on in Toronto, why not tune into a local Toronto RADIO station you will find out waay more useful news and info than listening to satellite. satellite is a "nice to have" but its not a "must have" type of technology

I never budgeted in my life for paying for music, other than buying CD's when I was younger (no more than $100 dollars of purchases in a year should be sufficient. and buying songs on google play music in the current generation and even now I find im spending LESS on music than I did when I was younger. I do not see the point in spending money on something that is FREE already, except for the fact that we have brainwashed our self to live in a "I MUST HAVE THIS SONG AND HAVE IT PLAYED NOW" society. everybody is in a friggin hurry and has a sense of entitlement and wants things and wants them NOW, no body has patience anymore, they lost it out the door years ago. Society CANT STAND COMMERCIALS AND ADVERTIZEMENTS so they want to sign up for commercial free streaming services, yet when the same people have their own business and need to advertise, they spend on Advertising because it brings their products to people they normally would not do, which is the whole point of a friggin commercial. talk about oxymoron. people get "offended" when a radio station plays music that is trending, because maybe they do not like the artist having success and only care about what they like. people need to grow a pair and stop living in a "i want this, i want that" society. well actually its their money their wasting not mine. let them waste their money
 
#8 ·
@Paolo Do you ever get tired of telling people who use technology differently from you that they are stupid/selfish/brainwashed/racist/etc without actually doing some research? https://www.digitalhome.ca/forum/24...n-about-future-online-ecommerce-good-bad.html

Like it or not (and I do like it), we've moved to an "on-demand" model for consuming media. There's nothing "noble" about waiting to hear/watch something according to someone else's schedule. The only "radio" I listen to is CBC Radio 1 and even that is streamed through my alarm clock app in the morning and not coming from a physical radio. Everything else is on-demand podcasts (which Spotify has, as ExDilbert pointed out) or on-demand news broadcasts. Your "biased" comment is nonsensical as there's tonnes and tonnes of non-English music on Spotify. Emergency alerts are now sent to cell phones and I can tell you my phone is much, much more likely to have power (with a spare charger) during a blackout than me having whatever batteries my one radio takes.

There's also nothing noble about listening to or watching commercials. I do have my own business and that kind of untargeted advertising is useless for my company. You're kind of right on one thing - it's my money, not yours, and if I see something that "I want" and can reasonably afford I see no reason to adhere to some misguided notion about patience.
 
#9 ·
I agree, I would never pay to stream music over the internet, nor pay for sirius xm or any other "radio" service.
I do however pickup some free satellite radio on Ku satellite, and feed the audio to an AM Modulator, to play over the antique tube radios that I have restored once in a while. If there was decent AM radio programming I wouldn't even need to do that. Plenty of good FM radio stations around.
Pretty much every city has a decent classic rock station, all I need.
 
#11 ·
I have to agree with the OP. There are still plenty of independently owned radio stations south of the border that have quality programming and good music.

My wife has SiriusXM in her new 2018 vehicle. When I drive her car, I switch over to terrestrial radio as there is too much chatter and adverts on SiriusXM. Cousin Brucie comes to mind. Combine this with the fact that satellite radio has a poor codec and you get the idea.

The problem in Canada has been the rape and pillaging of once great radio stations that were independently owned and operated, by either of the two large telecom companies.

When I'm out of range of favorite terrestrial radio stations, I have an extensive collection of CD's at the ready.

You can keep your low bit rate online streaming radio stations and lost packets. I'll take my high sample rate CD's any day.
 
#12 ·
Once again, I can download my Spotify playlists for times when WiFi or cell data is inaccessible. Completely ignored that fact while going on your tirade of it.

Seriously, what does us liking the convenience of Spotify and other services have to do with your disdain of them? How does this affect you personally (as it obviously must have for you to make a rant thread about it)?

Like it or not, as others mentioned, the general trend for media consumption is on-demand content. I like being able to randomly pull up a song that popped in my head and not being limited to what I downloaded to my phone. That said, if my data was used up I'd be perfectly fine with a downloaded playlist or even the radio. If a song gets removed from Spotify and I must absolutely have it no matter what (which is rare), then I'll buy it if I don't already have it.

You may not like it and that's perfectly fine, but don't think that the industry is going to stay the same just because you're reluctant to change. Failure to adapt to change is how Blockbuster folded (among other companies).

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#13 ·
BGY11

To each his own. If you can afford on demand content, go for it. My point is, some of us on here are old school. Some people think $50 per month for 10GB of data is dirt cheap. Given my home phone plan is about $6 per month for 2 DID's and long distance, I find cell phone plans obscenely expensive. Heck, I bought an unlocked LG G6 for my wife as I refused to pay double for it on a two year plan. It's all relative.

But when you start to add up on demand charges, broadband fees, etc. it gets to be prohibitively expensive for some of us.

I'll stick with my OTA set up for my music tastes for now. It's serving me well and sounds incredible on my old Harmon Kardon tube amplifier driving my Electro Voice Wolverine's.

Cheers,
 
#14 ·
Oh look, it's another Paolo "everyone who uses technology not from the 1980s is dumb!" thread. Don't you ever get tired of pretending like you're the arbiter of what is good for entire societies?

You sound like an old guy complaining about those damn kids today. It's sad.

If you like listening to terrible commercials and inane DJ chatter in your day, more power to ya. I've got better things to do, and am more than happy to pay for a higher quality product than the steaming turd pile that passes for free radio these days. Some of us just have higher standards than others.

Oh, and you talking about emergencies and radio is a joke. Last time we had an emergency out here on the weekend, all the radio stations were on automation and nobody was around to report anything. You know where the info was? Phones.
 
#18 ·
Oh look, it's another Paolo "everyone who uses technology not from the 1980s is dumb!" thread. Don't you ever get tired of pretending like you're the arbiter of what is good for entire societies?
What Paolo doesn't seem to get is that technology gets the consumer far more bang for their buck. I'm probably slightly older than him (late 40's) and there's no way I would want to go back to whatever past he's so fond of.

Music: Probably bought 5 CDs during an average month. At $12 per CD (and it was a lot more than that when labels felt free to rip off the consumer) that's $60/month. Now it's $9.99/month. Looking at my listening stats for last month - 1,244 plays of 1,068 different tracks by 537 different artists. Who cares if I don't own the tracks? It's not like ownership gives me any special rights beyond listening to the music. And yes, some tracks are not on Spotify. I can either go to Youtube if I just want a listen or buy the track if I want it in a playlist. But I don't have to buy 1,068 tracks.

Phone: Dropped from $60/month to $6/month thanks to VOIP. That's $54/month I can "waste" on what I want.

TV: $90/month to $40 (Skinny basic + Netflix). More money to waste! And I get to watch movies without the last hour being 10 minutes movie followed by 4 minutes of commercials.

Newspapers: I remember paying $4.50/week in the mid-nineties for home delivery of the Sunday New York Times. Now it's $20/month for online access to everything, every day, including archives. The Washington Post is $19 USD a year and I get a free second subscription to hand out. Electronic copy of the Toronto Star (their website is crap) is $10/month. I think we paid $20-$25/month for seven day home delivery in the mid nineties.

Books: Woodward's new book out tomorrow is $24.72 in hardcover or $15.74 as an e-book. Do I want to keep this book on a shelf for all time? Not really, so the e-book is fine. Or I can wait a while and get the book from the library on my tablet. And my to-read pile, thanks to sales that are constantly tweeted out, is pretty hefty.

That's just the major media. I'm pretty sure my high-school self would've wept if told he could get full on-demand access to the Encyclopedia Britannica for $20.99/year or eighteen-month-old AAA PC games for $10-$15.

There, that's my rant on how good (and cheaper) we have it now, compared to the past.
 
#15 ·
I agree that it's not necessary to pay for radio. If you can stand the frequent promotions for the paid service, some music services have free versions. There are thousands of stations available for streaming but most of that's not local AM or FM. There are some local AM and FM stations that are passable for listening in the car. At least one of them has a decent news team. It's notable that these are not owned by the large companies that have assimilated so many independent stations into their corporate networks. It doesn't always last long though. Sometimes I run into a wall of commercials and tired Cancon. Then the radio goes off.

I've noticed that the selection in the US is vastly different than in Canada. Many stations have revived brands from the 60s, 70s or 80s and broadcast them on sub-channels or stream them on the internet. Some of these stations have no commercials and feature the original DJs. I know of no Canadian stations that do this.
 
#16 ·
The complaint was made about online streams being low-bitrate. While that tends to be true for quite a few cases (especially the streams from actual AM/FM stations), the garbage processing being done by a lot of Canadian stations means you're sacrificing a lot in quality as well. Heavy compression that kills dynamic range akin to the "loudness wars" prevalent on a lot of CDs from the 90s & beyond. Don't think your CDs are much better than Spotify or Google Play Music at maximum quality, and of course all that pales to Tidal.

On the flipside, it's already well established that quality generally has taken a backseat to convenience. Yeah, perhaps you have equipment that can showcase the difference between 320kbps MP3 and a CD, but in general I still say "hogwash" - I almost guarantee that if you ripped a CD to 320kbps MP3 and did a true A/B comparison, you wouldn't hear the difference. Placebo is a beast!

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#17 ·
2 more points to mention, those of you who are Pro-Spotify and pro streaming stations, thank you! i hope you get your wish, you really want to make talk radio, MC's and DJ's become obsolete. I actually understand the benefits of Technology but theres some interesting books out there from some authors you guys should really read up on, too much reliance on this kind of technology has severe negative effects not just on the local economy but at a much larger scale.

THere is absolutely nothing wrong with the current conventional Radio Am/fm model, it works well, its been around for years, the only problem is this new generation and their "GREED" for everything, they want it and want it "NOW" and they want to break up an industry that gives us stable and reliable jobs and careers for pure greed and selfishness of their own, not to mention we need to sit back and take it easy and take things much slower. Radio does not need to die, it serves a great purpose theres many people who already enjoy it, elt them and the next generation continue to enjoy it

the second point to mention, yeah a lot of people know they can download their songs offline but a lot of people FORGET to do it until they already cross the peace bridge and are already on us soil and are like damn, i want to play my spotify playlist but forgot to download it and now im roaming, go ahead, PAY exorbant roaming fees to get waht you want, yeah technologys suppost to make life easier? hope u are happy when you open your cell bill and happily pay for the roaming data rates. while i sit back and listen to conventional fm or my burned cd of music which i made with music I already own
 
#19 ·
2 more points to mention, those of you who are Pro-Spotify and pro streaming stations, thank you! i hope you get your wish, you really want to make talk radio, MC's and DJ's become obsolete.
There are these things called podcasts. And streamable past-recorded shows.

the second point to mention, yeah a lot of people know they can download their songs offline but a lot of people FORGET to do it until they already cross the peace bridge and are already on us soil and are like damn, i want to play my spotify playlist but forgot to download it and now im roaming, go ahead, PAY exorbant roaming fees to get waht you want
There's this thing called free wifi which every coffee shop and their grandmother offers...
 
#20 ·
As far as making DJs obsolete, that's been happening more and more because stations are moving towards automation more and more, and not letting the actual "DJ" program the music in the first place! This stretches back before Spotify and more into the days of pirating music via Napster. People were generally getting tired of paying $12-$20 for a CD with one or two good songs and of course those were the ones being overplayed on the radio anyways.

One of the stations I do listen to a lot is 101.5 CKCE (Kool FM) here in Calgary. Their DJs actively engage their listeners! It's one of the few stations I've called into recently and had a good conversation with the DJs. That's not just with the morning show either; they're not focused on playing 15 of the same songs in an hour because there's three other stations doing that in the same genre. They also like to mix it up with digging up songs that haven't been played in a while (or even tracks they don't normally play!)

It's far too easy to blame the decline of radio on Spotify and other streaming services, but in reality, the shift to having a few corporate bigwigs owning virtually all stations, cookie cutter playlists, and boring DJs is what's hurting radio the most. Like the ads promoting advertising space on the radio indicate, Vaudeville, movies, television, and streaming were going to mark the end of radio, yet radio is still far from dead. That said, poor management and unwillingness to adapt to market demands has killed other companies, and radio station managers could learn a lot from those mistakes.



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#22 ·
If we're comparing old tech to new, how about the physical space involved? I've got a music collection of over 30k songs. Before I went digital, about two thirds of that was on CDs, which took up a whole wall of shelves in my basement. Now the whole collection sits on a hard drive on my desk, which is good because I moved into a condo a few years ago and don't have the room for all that anymore. Shelves and shelves of books? Two e-readers. I still have several shelves of Blu-rays and DVDs, but I don't remember the last time I actually bought one.

And as for quality, don't get me started on these people that think all digital music is artificial and only vinyl can reproduce true sound. Yes, true scratches, true distortion, and true degradation every time you play them. (I haven't had a turntable in years but I do have a record cabinet full of albums. I keep hoping I'll find out they're worth a few bucks someday. Plus it's a nice cabinet with a lamp and a bowl for my keys on it :smile)
 
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#26 ·
Tridus said:
The only real problem here is the previous generation and their relentless need to make themselves feel better about themselves by attacking people younger than them for the heinous crime of daring to have different preferences.
Except that this statement represents bigotry against previous generations, the exact thing you are accusing them of. Speak to the individual, don't stigmatize entire groups. I know where the demise of AM/FM radio lies and it's largely due to my generation, as well as others. It was caused by consumers flocking to big box stores and destroying the small businesses that comprised the bulk of advertising revenue for local radio and TV stations. That started when most Millennials were in public school, though I suspect their parents played a large role. Broadcasters themselves played a big role by refusing to adapt to business trends and new technologies in constructive ways and destroying much of the value of their own product.
 
#28 ·
Except that this statement represents bigotry against previous generations, the exact thing you are accusing them of.
Very well put.

At the end of the day, each of us has different preferences for our entertainment enjoyment.

The greatest challenge I have with availability of music today is finding digital copies of rare Canadian artist compilations from the 70's. Yes I have many of those on vinyl, however as another poster has noted, unless handled impeccably, vinyl becomes noisy with use and age.

If anyone has a plentiful source of digital songs from Canadian artists from the 70's, for example, I'd like to know.
 
#27 ·
The middle aged guy said:

100 years ago...

"who needs this new fangled radio stuff when we have the phonograph"


70 years ago...

"who needs this television stuff when we have perfectly good radio"


50 years ago...

"who needs this colour TV stuff when we have perfectly good B&W TV"


40 years ago...

"who needs cable when I can get everything with my antenna"



The world moves on...and luddites will exist in every generation harking for the "good old days". You only live once - do what you like, and let others do what they like. I like my AM/FM radio myself, but if my neighbour wants a satellite radio, Spotify, or doesn't even listen to music at all, so be it - I'm doing what I enjoy.
 
#31 · (Edited)
When I was young, I stuck 45s in a "record-eater" (very much like this one), watched black-and-white TV (maybe 3 channels?) and listened to AM radio. It was a pure and simple life. :)

And then the world got crazy with newfangled things like console stereos, colour TVs and FM radio. :(

;)

I very much enjoy having the Internet, a decent smartphone, access to services like iTunes, Netflix and Spotify and the ability to load my entire library of music (ripped CDs and tracks purchased on-line) into one compact device that I can take and use pretty much anywhere.

YMMV. :)
 
#32 ·
One thing I always wonder about, even with my personal choices, is how "rounded" people these days are with entertainment choices or being exposed to new things.

Two areas in my own lifetime that I'm very narrow about are music videos and sports.

Back when MuchMusic was the only source for music videos, I would watch horrible junk like Much West or Life on Venus Ave - but at the same time, I was being exposed to different music/cultures/etc that if I had a choice, I wouldn't bother watching with today's choices. But since it was the only thing on, and was the "best available thing" to watch, I would still watch it. Now, if I want to watch videos, I choose what I want to see and don't get exposed to anything new or different.

Sports is another area - I use to watch all kinds of sports, and all different teams because only 1 or 2 sporting events were on at a time, and it may not be the team you follow. Now, you can get every game from every team, or every sporting event. It's impossible for me to even follow all the sports I use to watch, so I've narrowed it down significantly to CFL, NFL, and F1 - however, for each of them there is endless content now - it's impossible to watch every minute of what is available.


I think back to all the hours I spent watching "junk" in the 70's 80's and 90's that I wouldn't bother to watch today. It shows the power that the big networks use to have, and how choice of content and choice of video sources is democratizing entertainment.

I use to come into school/work in the 70's through 90's (even in the early 2000's with shows like Survivor) and almost everybody watched the same show, talked about it, and it was a bonding/conversation exercise. Now everyone watches completely different programs, at different times, and it takes a bit away from the commonality that we use to have. Now, only the Super Bowl, Academy Awards, and a few other events has the same chit-chat watercooler conversations that use to occur almost daily.

However, there are now online communities for every obscure thing, and maybe that has replaced the face to face conversations...
 
#35 ·
One thing I always wonder about, even with my personal choices, is how "rounded" people these days are with entertainment choices or being exposed to new things.

Back when MuchMusic was the only source for music videos, I would watch horrible junk like Much West or Life on Venus Ave - but at the same time, I was being exposed to different music/cultures/etc that if I had a choice, I wouldn't bother watching with today's choices. But since it was the only thing on, and was the "best available thing" to watch, I would still watch it. Now, if I want to watch videos, I choose what I want to see and don't get exposed to anything new or different.
I think this is entirely dependent on how a consumer chooses to use the recommendation services that accompany most media services. Someone can choose to exactly what they see or hear or they can explore further using recommendation services. For example, Spotify produces a "Discover" playlists for me every week consisting of unheard tracks based on my listening history. A lot of these songs are "meh" or worse but there's the occasional gem, which leads me to explore a new artist or sub-genre.

The phenomenally inexpensive and on-demand nature of these services also encourage exploration. For example, I'm currently reading a novel partially set in an alt-reality Africa. It'd be pretty cool to listen to some African music while reading it. I'm certainly not going to get that on AM/FM radio and I'm very unlikely to spend $12 on a whim to buy a CD for a genre I know little about. But with Spotify, thirty seconds later I was listening to Afrobeat folk and then some Nigerian music at no additional cost.

Not to mention there's tonnes of music blogs and columns out that cover new music as well as re-issues. Before, you had to think about shelling out $$ if a review caught your eye. Now, it's a no-brainer.
 
#33 ·
I've pretty much given up on radio for music, because it's so bad these days. I'm old enough to remember when CHUM FM switched from classical music to album rock. There was a lot of excellent music back in those days, through the 70's, 80's and into the 90's. Then music quality took a severe turn for the worst, with very few good musicians getting air time
 
#34 ·
A really good free form DJ can expose listeners to a lot of new and interesting music. We had several free form FM stations on cable in the early 1970s. The other great thing about them was that they were commercial free. Once FM became popular and audiences large enough, they were flipped to top 40 with commercials. Free form stations continued in various forms but became more difficult to find with time. The last one I listened to was WDET, a public supported PBS station from Detroit. In the early 2000s it was changed to a full PBS affiliate and the music programming discontinued.
 
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