Pop music and the Radio for non-popists

Was gonna post this as a reply on the ILM top tracks, but it turned into an epic... So I thought best not to derail.

this is the first time I've knowingly heard Bad Romance

Do not understand how this is possible unless you live in the most remote parts of, say, Mongolia.

― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, 6 July 2010 16:56 (5 minutes ago) Bookmark

I've only knowingly heard Paparazzi and Poker Face by this lady. I'm quite out of tune with pop as a whole, so there's a lot of tracks I've never heard. It just doesn't register on my radar - I work in a music-less office, don't drive a car, do most of my TV viewing through the internet - actually I don't think I even own a radio. So when I get home or listen to my ipod I find I've got so much waiting in the download queue from other regions of the musical sphere, that I don't feel the need to have my programming chosen for me by a DJ, not least one who's going to chatter between songs or play inane adverts and soul-destroying jingles. Life's too short to sit through that stuff, especially since most commercial stations in the UK rotate the same 12 songs every hour.

So I guess I only really hear radio blasting through shop tannoys and open-top cars and to me, in more ways than one, it's just wallpaper - background noise. It's easy to take the, what many would call a "rockist" assumption, that it's all samey crap.

Then reading things like the ILM Top 100 tracks, I start feeling a kind of guilt about not being a pop fan, or not knowing quite what's moving the units. I grew up listening to the radio and buying pop singles, so why as a music fan with a fairly wide taste, do I not factor in commercial pop?

It's nice to hear lots of people getting excited about a particular track that works as a national rather than personal phenomenon - and I appreciate the best stuff has particular qualities, for instance out of the list I was pleasantly surprised by the Ne-Yo, Beyonce and Cassie tracks.

What are people's general thoughts on this?

Also - where do ilxors hear most of this stuff? Are you downloading or youtubing or is it the radio and tv?

I never listen to the radio. it is fairly easy to be blissfully unaware of crap I'm not interested in.

also nothing "moves units" anymore, units barely even exist - there's increasingly less and less of a statistical/social reason to privilege mainstream media outlets as somehow more relevant than any other, so it doesn't bother me a bit

Well I think my interest in the radio/pop has declined with the death of the chart countdown - not that sales should have anything to do with it, but I think there was a certain excitement I used to feel every Sunday when I was taping the Top 40 as a kid; wondering about new entries and rooting for a particular hit over another. Now hardly anyone has any idea what's at number 1 or whatever; so the days of the big pop single as event have been very much over for a while.

I spent a lot of years running away from "popular" music, going out of my way to not know anything about it. That was most of my 20s in fact. I'm not sure when I decided to actively seek it out again, but I'm familiar with most of what's in both the 2000-04 list and what's in the current 2005-09 list.

I put as much effort into looking for good new pop music to like as I do old Nigerian Funk comps and bands from Scandinavia that sound icy and corpse-like. I dunno. If I had more things going on in my life and didn't have the time to constantly be seeking out music that's new (or new to me), I'm not sure which area I'd sacrifice. It probably wouldn't be pop music, though, because that just brings me an incalculable amount of joy when a song like "With Every Heartbeat" or "Bad Romance" arrives.

most local radio in england atm seems to prefer jason mraz to actual pop music. gaga a bit too weird, while a piece of shit garbage band like the script are bland enough to be fine. i.e. radio i hear around here is for non-popists, its for people in their 40s. dunno about radio 1 v. radio 2 or whatever, i only listen to 1xtra or radio 4 comedy when i listen to the radio of my own accord as opposed to putting up with the shit they play at work.

Wait you don't go to pubs and bars where this stuff gets played?

well, maybe. the pubs i go to have jukeboxes and the clientele don't choose current radio hits so much as rock, alternative and dance. and even if they did, i don't think i'd be paying a great deal of attention to what music's playing at bar-room level over a tannoy.

I dunno, if you're not paying any attention to the four or five most fundamental ways in which pop music has been heard in this country for the decades, how exactly do you presume to hear it?

pubs and clubs that play current pop in North Herts area are seriously awful places, word of warning to you. maybe it's different if you go out in the city.

I work in London now - I should really go out a bit more and experience these "bars" you speak of.

matt - when do you hear it? i know that sounds like a dumb question because it's "everywhere", but y'know, it's not really something my friends know about or care for and I'm not exposed to it through radio or TV. Do you listen to the radio a lot?

I am a little surprised at how thoroughly it's been assumed that 'pop' as such is inescapable. Dog Latin's description is an extreme but it's actually fundamentally easy to let things skip by if your interests are elsewhere (and if your interests ARE elsewhere, all the shouting in the world eg 'how can you NOT notice' is not going to change that).

Popular music's very nature -- a compactness of form, something quickly heard in the space of three/four minutes -- obviously allows it a greater flexibility than most other art forms in the popular sphere. It can be and often is much more quickly and easily encountered and heard to the full than individual movies, TV shows, books and so forth. (Certainly much more than plays.) Being prioritized as the way to keep in touch with the world at large is therefore understandable.

But it can exist as a distant buzz if you choose not to pay attention -- during much of the nineties my own interest was rather sporadic, and the first time I specifically turned against pop as something to participate in was 1986/87 after a really dull stretch on the charts, lots of dull ballads and cloddish AOR with only a few gems here and there. As it stands my current approach is keeping a general familiarity while concentrating more on specific interests -- musical and non-musical -- elsewhere, and allowing for pleasant surprises to emerge, often by chance. That this approach might not work for all is obvious; that it works for me, right now, is key. If/when it changes, it changes.

I am a little surprised at how thoroughly it's been assumed that 'pop' as such is inescapable. Dog Latin's description is an extreme but it's actually fundamentally easy to let things skip by if your interests are elsewhere...

― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, July 6, 2010 10:17 AM (14 seconds ago) Bookmark

honestly, most of my in-the-moment pop awareness comes to me 2nd hand through ilm, for which i'm thankful

the reason it rings true for ned but less so for dog latin is b/c while it's pretty easy for a pop song to pass you by, it's also super-easy to hear them if you have even the slightest interest in doing so, which is implied by turning up on the poll threads and constantly complaining about not having heard them. i mean fair enough, you didn't actually hear "bad romance", fine, but you definitely need to have been living under a rock not to be aware that "bad romance" existed and was a big deal in pop terms. if you're really not interested, fine, you don't have to be! but if you didn't care enough to check it out on youtube or whatever, this sort of thread is a bit disingenuous really.

same goes for the attention you don't pay to noise, metal, white boy indie, etc., lex. everybody has their inexcusable ignorances, and no particular interest is more laudable than any other.

i don't think any of that's true, because by reading the poll thread, i'm obviously interested; but like contenderizer, i'm only hearing of things through polls such as this, so it's always a bit of a culture shock coming to those threads and suddenly everyone's "wahey, this song was EVERYHWERE!" etc...

Also, when I say I haven't heard of stuff on a poll thread, that is not a complaint. I'm not going to complain about a poll, let alone one I didn't vote in. If a song's shit then, yeah I'll say so, but if I haven't heard it I won't judge.

xpost to lex

yeah but you don't see me starting entire threads complaining that the hott new metal sounds don't magically enter my brain through osmosis or something

xps

Mostly hear pop stuff on TV these days

and most of my friends are into other shit (metal, art/noise, nostalgia, homemade stuff, etc). the disconnect is probably a function of my age.

ok yeah i have no real friends who are into really interesting, non pop/critic choice stuff, other than some people i barely talk to. i can't imagine my friends telling me about and making me listen to new 'pop' stuff, even if its stuff i hate (muse fans eurgh). Using pop as in popular music here. (Just as easy to be told about katy perry as muse as the glee soundtrack etc.)

don't see dog latin's post as a complaint so much as the articulation of a line of thinking. OP isn't putting pop down so much as articulating a set of circumstances and prejudices (with self-awareness) that keep it distant. and asking some questions. all of which strikes me as fair play.

I felt similarly to dog latin a few years ago and youtube has been a godsend for not feeling totally out of the loop even if it's not quite the same as feeling immersed in the culture of pop. I still tend to be months behind things breaking as songs have to make their way through various filters before I can look them up (though I do hear things in random other ways). If you're actively interested though, it gets easier. Here is one toolwith some familiar names.

I listen to a lot of radio in the car -- three rap/R&B stations, two modern rock and one pop among my pre-programmed stations -- and don't pop in a CD unless none of those is playing anything I want to hear. I stay at home with my kid and keep a lot of video channels -- MTV Hits/Jams and VH1 Classic and Fuse, etc. -- in channel surfing rotation. Plus occasionally go to clubs/bars. If I depended purely on ILM or blogs or whatever to keep me in the loop on popular music I'd hear a lot less, I still think the internet is pretty spotty as far as representing what's really going on in pop, unless you know exactly what sites to look at.

Do MTV and the other video channels provide a broader spectrum of pop than say, your average adult contemporary or r&b radio station?

MTV Hits has blind spots but probably cuts across a larger swath of pop than any one radio format right now, there's definitely stuff I see on there that I don't hear on any of the stations I get in my car.

part of that is also that they play a good amount of trash being promoted by labels that isn't really charting anywhere

Interesting, thanks. I don't have much time to watch MTV, but it's good to know that's out there.

I think it's a bit monolithic to talk about "keeping up with" pop or not doing so.

I'm (relatively speaking) quite on top of these things but, for instance, had not heard or been aware of Train's "Hey Soul Sister" until well after it had taken over the charts - it doesn't fall within my radar and even with pop radio I'm likely to gravitate towards stations that are vaguely closer to my overall taste - e.g. I'll still hear songs I don't like but it's more likely to be Guetta-ish "AND PARTY AND PARTY AND PARTY AND PARTY" than annoying acoustic ditties about Mr. Mister.

When I last spent a lot of time driving, I really started to see small-rotation radio as a way of liking music more, not less, than I would getting it from another source. Basically because radio immediately puts you in some sort of context, and keeps you there, and that context is sort of the same one that the artists are (at least partly) aiming at. I mean, honestly, if you were looking to feel engaged with a given genre as quickly as possible, you could do a whole lot worse than putting on a small-rotation pop radio station for an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon for a couple weeks. The second a new track hits that rotation, you might have feelings about it way more acute than you would if you just looked the single up on YouTube between playing your own stuff.

Pretty much all pop I hear these days (outside of things like advertising) is stuff I make a point of hearing, which I agree can feel a little weird -- it really is a different experience to seek out pop rather than just absorb it as a part of the environment. But the parts I'm interested in tend to be either the super-popular stuff that still is just in your environment (Gaga) or the r&b/hip-hop stuff, which ... a lot of the time I'll just sit down with the actual Billboard chart for that stuff and listen to tracks on YouTube. I mean, that is another good way to follow "pop" -- the existence of a whole complicated chart system that will track and announce to you what is popular. Maybe that sounds old or clueless to go over the Billboard chart, but that's ... that's what it's for, following pop.

During the last decade or so, going to the gym was one of the main ways I heard pop music (broadly) in a "natural" setting (i.e., not as a result of looking for things mentioned on ILM, on youtube). Unfortunately, I haven't been going to the gym recently for reasons kind of out of my control. Of course, if you go to a gym that prides itself on playing nothing but techno, or plays oldies or what have you, then it's not going to work.

man my gym plays the worst fucking music

quit

I listen to r'n'b/rap radio but rarely top 40 pop radio. So I first heard Train "Hey Soul Sister" when I put on MTV early one morning getting ready for work (only have basic cable so I do not have all the cable choices Some Dude mentioned above). I was at a Bar Mitzvah recently and at the party afterwards all the kids were singing along with that and seemingly the entire Black Eyed Peas catalogue.

Yeah but Doglatin:

- You don't watch pop TV
- You don't listen to pop radio
- You don't pay much attention to pop songs that are playing in pubs/bars/shops/on car radios

If you'd been living like this, you wouldn't have heard any commercial pop in 1998 or 1988 or indeed at any time before. You have to at least be keeping an ear out, paying SOME attention, if you're really that interested. You probably just don't give enough of a shit.

mdc otm. i hope this doesn't get brought up again when the next poll comes along.

(There's nothing wrong with not caring, my mum probably doesn't know any of the songs in this poll, but I'm not sure she's handwringing about it)

The second a new track hits that rotation, you might have feelings about it way more acute than you would if you just looked the single up on YouTube between playing your own stuff.

Pretty much all pop I hear these days (outside of things like advertising) is stuff I make a point of hearing, which I agree can feel a little weird -- it really is a different experience to seek out pop rather than just absorb it as a part of the environment.

I've been thinking about this a lot. A lot of it comes down to push vs pull - TV/radio vs internet as a model for how you hear things. I vastly prefer the former. Somehow, as nabs says above, it has an impact "way more acute" than if I were copying and pasting song titles into YouTube. But is that just me and my age?

There's quite a lot of push on the internet as well though - things like Last.fm, the Related Videos section on Youtube etc etc. Even Myspace to an extent.

reckon i hear most of what new pop music i hear in shops

I always feel out of it when the end-of-year singles polls come out. I don't have cable, don't feel like watching Youtubes is really listening to music, and when I listen to the radio in the car it's always the Country station. I do try to keep up, but sometimes the effort is annoying--I've heard "Bad Romance" and "Papparazzi" lots of times, but that's because I dled them and put them on my ipod, not because they were hanging in the air around me. "Pokerface" for example is not on my ipod, and therefore I haven't heard it. I've only heard the supposedly unavoidable "Umbrella" one time in a context outside my own iTunes.

I think that growing up as an MTV kid gave me expectation that if a song was a hit I was just going to hear it without having to actively seek it out. Nowadays the closest thing to an "unavoidable" hit for me is one that gets used in movie trailers, like "Paper Planes" or whatever.

Somehow, as nabs says above, it has an impact "way more acute" than if I were copying and pasting song titles into YouTube. But is that just me and my age?

i don't see why this is - it seems like a bit of a romanticisation of pop as an idealised communal event rather than, y'know, just music. you don't usually receive your techno or indie or whatever via this weird magical-cultural-osmosis that dog latin seems to expect, so why is it so "weird" when you have to make the tiniest bit of effort to find out what lady gaga sounds like?

It's easier to put MTV on in the background than to active type in names into youtube, then do it again three minutes later when the song runs out.

actively

i actually rarely hear big hits "naturally", cuz i) i hate radio, ii) never watch tv, iii) wear headphones everywhere. (all of that behaviour predates the internet.) so, not hearing these songs in the wild isn't that weird. but being unaware of them would be weird, because that's just a matter of PAYING ATTENTION TO PEOPLE. and once you're aware that there's a famous pop star called lady gaga, it's down to whether you're curious enough to hear what she sounds like - if you are, it's so easy to find out that there's no excuse. and if you're not, fine, but don't pretend you give a shit with threads such as this one.

But Lex - most music, ESPECIALLY pop music, is fundamentally meant to be consumed in social situations, and if your social group skews away from that music it becomes harder. But it's still easier with pop than anything else.

It's the same with techno, most of the big tunes I really loved over the last 10 years were first heard on the dancefloor. Now I don't go clubbing as much, finding out about stuff seems like more of a chore, a trawl, and as a result I don't hear as much.

It probably doesn't help that the mediocre-to-amazing ratio in techno is quite a lot poorer.

I think you're being really mean to doglatin here, lex. He's trying to find an easier way to incorporate pop music into his life.

ok three-step plan to hearing all the big pop hits

1) pay attention to what songs people are talking about and what's in the charts
2) youtube or download
3) listen

simple.

But Lex - most music, ESPECIALLY pop music, is fundamentally meant to be consumed in social situations

idk, i think this is a bit of a romanticisation of it. unless you're at a club or someone's putting tunes on at a house gathering, what other social situations does one consume music in? when it comes to listening on a quotidian basis i'm pretty sure most people (the people who make a point of listening to music every day, anyway) consume it alone.

No I think that's wrong - I'd say the vast majority of people in this country consume pop music through the radio in offices and vehicles, then through hearing things on TV, then through hearing things in pubs and bars. Far more people than bother to look things up on the internet.

(Okay TV isn't really a social thing but the other points stand).

radio in cars isn't a social thing either! and i've never worked in an office with a communal radio (thank god).

obv i mean "music fans", ilm types, not casual music listeners.

(thank god).

Really, you should.

The answer's in the question for me - ILM. Like dog latin I barely hear any pop other than as background music because, well, my life isn't really structured that way, and as far as radio goes, it's not so much the music as the bloody people on it that make it unlistenable. But as long as you don't mind being behind the curve a bit then ILM is amazing for people with discriminatory wit discussing the best stuff, which gives me the best pop radio I could imagine, with a bit of youtubing/judicious purchasing. OK, I don't always, no, don't often know what people are voting for, but then that's why the votes are great (and also why I generally prefer them pop heavy than, say, indie heavy - I know where I am generally with that sort of thing, and The Fall have been my perpetual companion since I was a youth, so, you know, much as I enjoyed seeing Blindness in the poll, it was most enjoyable for the things that I haven't heard, wouldn't have heard otherwise).

An old-fashioned admission: few things match hearing a single I've championed on the radio.

contextual listening should be mandatory for anyone calling themselves a pro critic imo - without the dialogue any given aesthetic just becomes crippled didactic bias eventually. some dude also mega otm about internet myopia

contextual listening should be mandatory for anyone calling themselves a pro critic imo - without the dialogue any given aesthetic just becomes crippled didactic bias eventually.

not really sure what this means, if anything

what is contextual reading?

what is 'the dialogue'?

man am i supposed to write a essay on it? the dialogue is in experiencing how things do or don't work in situ rather than solely in your own personal headspace bubble

and that situ is determined by ______________?

idk, the civilians listen to stuff in varying contexts, and im not sure who the critic is meant to be beholden to here. their only duty is to write good criticism, full stop.

radio in cars isn't a social thing either!

??? It is if there's more than one person in the car.

There's two ways I hear pop music: 1) listening to the radio when I drive, and 2) actively looking up YouTubes or listening to iTunes clips as a result of following the Billboard chart or the ILM rolling pop thread. I don't have cable, so there's no such thing as "music TV" for me, and most of the bars/clubs I go to don't play contemporary pop music.

From roughly 1997 to 2002, I heard very little pop at all because I didn't value it at the time and therefore never sought it out. Even in the car, I listened to NPR or college radio. Maybe the alt-rock station once in a while. Occasionally, something would break through: in the summer of 2000, it seemed like everybody was talking about Eminem and I found myself fascinated by him as a cultural phenomenon, so I paid attention a little more closely and heard "The Real Slim Shady" and "Stan." (It helped that the alt-rock station played him.) But I also missed a lot of stuff at the time that was huge: Notorious B.I.G., Aaliyah, Destiny's Child, DMX, Nelly, etc. If I happened to hear these songs while out (and I'm not sure where I would have, at least not on a regular basis), I likely would've just tuned it out.

I think one of the benefits of hearing things "in context" (and this is maybe just repeating r|t|c's point) is that it makes you think more about how stuff you love, stuff you like, stuff you're indifferent too and stuff you hate all fit together.

If you're the total master of your own destiny in terms of what you hear then it's very easy to get caught in a critical feedback loop where the stuff you seek out is good because you seek it out because it is good because you seek it out because etc.

I think ceding control to the radio offers a useful lesson to the effect that pop (in the broadest sense) is filled with a variety of strategies that sometimes pay off and sometimes fail miserably, and that sometimes the difference between the first outcome and the second is pretty subtle.

I think that is all generally true, Tim, although I have trouble sometimes figuring out how the stuff I hear on the radio fits in with the rest of the music I listen to. Like usually, I can tell how much I like something based on how often I am compelled to listen to it. But there could be a pop song I've heard dozens of times involuntarily, and I'm not sure if I really like it or if I've just heard it so often that it's stuck with me.

I think that goes some way towards agreeing with my point!

Ah yes, I suppose!

i seek out stuff i don't think i'll enjoy (and the fact that i've heard of, and indeed heard, songs by sleigh bells, dirty projectors, animal collective et al proves my point about paying attention). helps that there's a huge variety of tastes in my circle of friends and acquaintances.

agree that context is helpful, disagree that the radio is essential for that context...even ignoring non-social contexts, it's just one social context among many. and a particularly annoying one at that.

it makes you think more about how stuff you love, stuff you like, stuff you're indifferent too and stuff you hate all fit together

the only thing radio has ever made me think is how much i hate radio presenters. and really, you need the radio to teach you that pop's failed strategies and successful ones are similar? idk i've never listened to the radio regularly ever and i definitely don't plan on starting any time soon, there are too many other ways of listening which don't do my head in.

and if radio is so essential, is criticism of, idk, a joanna newsom* album that doesn't get played on radio stations anywhere invalid? if you're able to approach that as pure music why can't you do the same for a beyoncé song? and isn't that what you have to do for eg beyoncé album tracks?

*i guess she might get played on radio now, insert, you know, ~difficult~ artist who doesn't there, too tired to think of one

Context and serendipity is great (completely agree with Tim F's point fwiw and not just for music) but it's nice to have an gazetteer for certain areas. Taking short cuts to get maximum enjoyment for minimum effort is worth it if you don't want to immerse yourself in something at the expense of other areas you also value.

Taking short cuts all the time is boring and you get minimum reward from the things you are interested in.

xposts

Ugh, radio presenters drive me up the wall, main reason I don't listen.

the only thing radio has ever made me think is how much i hate radio presenters.

Speaking as a former one...

More seriously -- I admit that in my head (and I think this is a not dissimilar path for a number of people) radio as a preeminent, almost solitary source of finding out new things is situated in a time and place for me, namely my youth. Part of this can be ascribed to the expected issues addressed elsewhere on recent threads -- that listening habits when young shape one's view of music as a whole, questions of free time, etc. Then there's also what Lex describes -- most DJs, combined with ads, make me NOT want to listen. But there's also the question of pop radio as way to hear new sounds and styles -- Tim is rightfully concerned about a feedback loop, but the flipside is that if you are both aware of potential sources around *and* open enough to stumbling across surprises, the context of pop-radio-in-itself as a necessary focus is eroded, if not wholly ditched.

On a broader scale -- for the longest time I've invoked the role model of a 15 year old kid hearing something random for the first time and wondering what the heck it is as a way to capture that sense of the pop radio thrill; I still find it valid. But the 39 year old me is not interested in and cannot write from the point of view of pretending to be 15, not without sounding ridiculously patronizing. Perhaps this is a failing, but if I'm going to be honest with my writings and thoughts for others I kinda have to be honest with myself first.

The whole "THAT SONG WAS EVERYWHERE" requires a little bit of paying attention on the listener's part. You're probably hearing these songs, but not properly internalizing no matter how many times you drop the old "I don't even OWN a radio canard"

A good example is like when me and my gf would go out and every time a car would go by playing "Empire State Of Mind" I would groan. She would always be like, "Why are you doing that? I don't even know that song." Even though I heard it in her presence like 10 times. You just have to sort of ask yourself "What is this" every time you hear a song.

There's just a little bit of LOL READ YOUR BLOGS and just listening to your surroundings. I don't listen to the radio or watch TV but I know every Ke$ha single just because I hear them out in public, listen to the lyrics, internalize what they are and match them up to the 10,000 times people mention "Your Love Is My Drug" on the internet

britishes referring to radio DJs/hosts/personalities as 'presenters' will really never not be funny to me

idgi

do radio djs even use 'discs'? hmm?

and i've never worked in an office with a communal radio (thank god).

We used to have either Radio 1 or 2 (occasionally some local sation) on at work util a year or two back and it really does make a difference - on one hand it means I'm less aware of what the meat and potatoes of mainstream pop is right now (which I sort of miss), on the other I don't have to spend my working day sitting through stodgy playlists of largely terrible music (and, yes, terrible DJs).

Other than that, though, I still hear a lot of things through the usual channels - I make a habit of sticking one of the TV chart rundowns every so often, just out of curiosity. Or, yeah, I just look things up on YouTube that I've heard about here. It just means I cover less ground because I'm not spending as much time listening (or hearing in the background).

Life's too short to sit through that stuff, especially since most commercial stations in the UK rotate the same 12 songs every hour.

Can't you listen to the radio for 15 mins then?

"Speaking as a former one..."

would have loved to hear your rocktober lunch box two for tuesday rock blocks and your artfully placed bill murray caddyshack samples.

Believe me, I could have gone down that road if I tried. (Much more likely was classical DJing.)

idgi

do radio djs even use 'discs'? hmm?

― frap your hands say yeah yeah yeah (history mayne), Wednesday, July 7, 2010 10:19 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

some do...some do

point is 'presenters' brings to mind someone at an awards show dressed to the nines and opening an envelope for me, and it's funny to picture someone sitting in a radio station behind a microphone doing that

"This is Ned Rockin' Raggett, playin' the best of classic rock album sides. Next up, we got an awesome one from a little band called the Eagles..."

point is 'presenters' brings to mind someone at an awards show dressed to the nines and opening an envelope for me, and it's funny to picture someone sitting in a radio station behind a microphone doing that

― Davey Mo Coulier (some dude), Wednesday, 7 July 2010 15:36

heeeere's [award show], with your HOST...

not listening to the radio anymore has actually made me appreciate pop music a lot more when I occasionally hear it.

I'm also one of those people who had to actively seek out Lady Gaga's music as I had only heard/read a some random comments about her and finally a couple of months ago decided I should at least know what she sounds like and so decided to download one of her albums.

i really am gonna sit down when i have time and go through that tracks thread and watch the youtubes. i'm looking forward to it. so much stuff i haven't heard. like, most of it probably.

last year we all went bowling with ilxor herb albert and his family and they were blasting all the big pop hits and, man, i didn't know any of them. and they all sounded great to me. good sound system at the bowling alley. basically i just like hearing beyonce or anything beyonce-esque really loud in a public place. that day stands out cuz i really don't hear that stuff all that often otherwise. i don't watch mtv anymore. we get the bare minimum of cable now. and sadly i mostly listen to the western mass radio station The River which is mostly boring alterna-yuppie npr stuff. i listen to that cuz it comes in really good. pop/r&b/chart/rap/etc is really addictive to me though. i mean i never REALLY feel out of the loop or whatever. you can get back into it with a minimum of strain or effort. it's easy.

point is 'presenters' brings to mind someone at an awards show dressed to the nines and opening an envelope for me, and it's funny to picture someone sitting in a radio station behind a microphone doing that

― Davey Mo Coulier (some dude), Wednesday, 7 July 2010 15:36

heeeere's [award show], with your HOST...

― r|t|c, Wednesday, July 7, 2010 11:04 AM (32 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

in America awards shows have one host (or maybe two or three sometimes) for the whole thing and then there are a few dozen celebs billed as presenters who announce the individual awards

xpost aw man, don't listen to The River, that shit's like musical poison. turn on The WIZZ, Laser 99.3, fuckin BEAR Country. anything but...

I'm down outside of Houston now and found the like the perfect hip-hop/pop station that we don't have out in the sticks. heard Gucci Mane 'Wasted' -> Ke$ha 'Your Love Is My Drug' -> B.o.B. 'Airplanes' -> Lady Gaga 'Alejandro' -> Young Money 'Bedrock' on my drive back from the store

I think you can hear lots of pop in shops or doctors surgeries or adverts on TV without knowing who the songs are by and you think you have never heard anything by *insert pop star mentioned in newspapers or ILM threads*. Until one day a youtube is posted in a poll thread then you go "Oh I have heard that! Just didn't know who it was by".

Because that is what happens to me. Same goes for the big "indie" or "mainstream rock" bands.

"xpost aw man, don't listen to The River, that shit's like musical poison."

but it's my official source for all things michael franti!

Different is Good.

There's quite a lot of push on the internet as well though - things like Last.fm, the Related Videos section on Youtube etc etc. Even Myspace to an extent.

OK well I don't do last.fm so I don't know about that. But related videos on Youtube, myspace etc - you have to click a link, type a URL - usually while you're sitting at a desk. It doesn't just wash over you. And yes Lex, with the radio (and pubs, and the gym, etc) there IS an effortless osmosis - the songs just come, one after the other. Sometimes the DJs even say what they are. And knowing that lots of other people are listening RIGHT NOW to the same thing you are gives it an added thrill, makes me feel connected up. It's (sort of) like the difference between watching the Roland Garros final as it happens or watching it on DVR or Youtube or whatever. It's the exact same match but one of them has an electricity to it that the other doesn't.

Cosign.

And knowing that lots of other people are listening RIGHT NOW to the same thing you are gives it an added thrill, makes me feel connected up.

I remember Tom Ewing mentioning something like this once. It's weird in that as I consciously recognize it being accurate (consider ILX/Twitter commentary on lots of things happening in the moment, not just musical), I don't recall getting this feeling from radio play. It always felt quite private, really.

totally agree w/ned - have never got any sort of electricity or communal thrill off the radio. i actually do get it when i read people's comments on last.fm or even youtube, though - seeing how much a song i love also means to other people.

you have to click a link, type a URL

OH THE EFFORT *wipes sweat from brow*

ok, everyone talking about the magic of this effortless radio osmosis which saves you from ever having to think or pursue a song - i don't believe that you've only ever consumed music via the radio. i know you have music you love that didn't come to you via osmosis. is listening to that music somehow lesser for you, then?

I think you can hear lots of pop in shops or doctors surgeries

Is this another British term? Because generally I am asleep during surgery.

Actually, I have a question: Does the UK have anything like adult-contemporary radio? Because I can sort of imagine someone being familiar with pop songs by Colbie Caillat or Jason Mraz or Taylor Swift from the Lite FM that gets played in offices, grocery stores, laundromats, etc., and not knowing anything by Drake or Ke$ha.

Colbie Caillat

Who?

Ignorance is bliss.

That stuff just doesn't seem to cross the Atlantic

I think you can hear lots of pop in shops or doctors surgeries

Is this another British term? Because generally I am asleep during surgery.

the waiting room while waiting to see the doctor as they're behind schedule usually. Not during surgery (my guess is they play classical in there)

Ah yes: see, that's another place where in the U.S. you'd hear pop music but it would usually be of the adult-contemporary variety.

Or maybe a "mix" station like this.

Actually, I have a question: Does the UK have anything like adult-contemporary radio? Because I can sort of imagine someone being familiar with pop songs by Colbie Caillat or Jason Mraz or Taylor Swift from the Lite FM that gets played in offices, grocery stores, laundromats, etc., and not knowing anything by Drake or Ke$ha.

BBC Radio 2 is sort of like that - they play a lot of polite singer-songwriter stuff and a tiny bit of modern r'n'b (more of the retro-styled Amy Winehouse variety as opposed to, say, Ciara). Surprisingly 'California Gurls' is on their playlist at the moment but I'd put money on it being some version with Snoop edited out.

Smooth Radio
or any local oldies station like Clyde 2 and its equivalents over the country that have the exact same playlists