Monday, October 5, 2009

Music Programming for Radio 101

I'm starting to think I should change the description of this blog to "I write things about music" cause here goes another post that is music-related, as a rant that I've been pushing off for too long and that I hope is a bit more understandable than other things I've complained about in the past.

Today I would like to complain about some people's idea of good music programming. I am a very happy customer of the Satellite service called "Sirius" (which now merged with their former competitor "XM"). Satellite radio comes with a fee but it has the advantage of providing uninterrupted music based on themes with no commercials at all, straight to your car. Now I understand that at home I can have the same service for free with Pandora, Last.fm and other services, but Sirius-XM works in my car and as I drive long distances I don't have to be tuning into new radios, just pick a channel and enjoy the music (plus the radio I have allows me to pause and rewind if I want to, as well as alerts when my favorite bands are being played in other channels). Anyway, the service rocks BUT there is a big problem I have been having for a while.

For a whole year I was an avid listener of Sirius 29, the Punk Channel. It was all I ever wanted to hear, non-stop punk 24/7! Unfortunately they decided it didn't have enough audience and moved it to Sirius 28 "Radio Faction" which was a collection of hard-rock/new metal and hear this... HIP-HOP! Since they were restructuring the radios, and moving punk music into it, I figured it would be a hard-rock/metal/punk station which makes perfect sense, but for some reason, some fucking retard in the programming department still thinks it's a good idea to put rap/hip-hop between hard songs!! To illustrate why my anger towards that channel is increasing I would like you to experience what it feels like with this true case that happened last week.

Imagine you have been listening to rock & punk for a while (and I'm assuming you enjoy it) and right after you finish the following song (Critical Acclaim by Avenged Sevenfold)...




(I personally like it, but that's beyond the point)
... they go and play this (50 cent featuring Eminem!!) WTF!!!



To then jump to something "normal" again, "They Say" by "Scars on Broadway".



Every now and then they'll do something ridiculous like that, including other "artists" like Nelly, Snoop Dogg, La Coka Nostra, ... Rap/Hip-Hop artist that as much as I would normally ignore (by simply not listening to a station where they are played) I am forced to endure (for the few seconds before I switch to Lithium (Sirius 24, early 90s grunge/rock channel)...

Now the thing that I don't get is: Who has the sick perverted mind to think that it's a good transition to go straight from hard rock to gangsta rap!??! It makes absolutely no sense to me. if they went from metal, to rock, then to something like Linkin Park (even if I don't like them, I tolerate them), then maybe some beastie boys and then the stinking rap... That would make a little more sense, a gradual progression towards that style, but they do it with such disregard for successive styles that it boggles my mind.

It really makes me wonder if there's anyone in the hip-hop station (there are about 10 of them on Sirius) that will do the opposite and put something like Slipknot right between Eminen and Jay-Z, personally I doubt it...

1 comment:

  1. Bueno, si dices que ponen también numetal, podría entender la relación, porque al fin y al cabo algo de hiphop tiene. Pero, de todas formas, 50cent... pfffff, qué bajonazo... Entiendo y comparto tu crítica. Por cierto, muy bien Avenged Sevenfold, llevaba tiempo sin escucharlos. Mmmm ¿estarán en Spotify? Voy a comprobarlo.

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