The death of good radio?

This is just something to start my blog off; a bit of a rant about one of the most irritating things about radio & popular music at the moment.

I used to enjoy listening to the radio at least a little when I was younger. Nowadays, there is literally nothing I hear that I enjoy. Yes, my taste has developed, but there has been an increase in copycat artists who churn out the same old cliched content recycled from other bands they have heard. For example, 'Indie' once meant the band was independent, but it quickly became a genre of its own, that, to me seemed to cause an influx of these artists doing the same thing musically that quickly became tiresome. Im not critising the genre itself, but the sheer volume of virtually talentless artists copying each other within that genre. Yes, the same can be said for any genre, but indie / new pop especially becomes noticable due to the vast demographic that listens to it, thus the bombardment of radio coverage.

When I think about it, my favourite music has its own special style, a sound/riff that is unique to the band that separates them from the crowd. Melody is very important to me in music, lyrics are important, but I find no matter how hard I try I cannot get interested in music that doesnt have a tune that hooks me.

Radio content these days is all pretty forgettable mainstream stuff. Yes, thats what people want, but why? It's fair enough that music is not that important to many people, but for those like me who have a passion for it, it's a little annoying. I would like to be able to switch on the radio & find something I like playing.

That being said, most of my favourite music has been introduced to me by my dad. But the Semisonic album (Feeling Strangely Fine) was brought back from the US after dad heard it on the radio over there. I listened to that so much growing up & the songs were all so melodically intriguing for me, so listenable but also lyrically great at the same time. Other notible childhood US bands that were introduced by dad are Dave Matthews Band (who, coincidently I went to see live recently they were fantastic), Barenaked Ladies (oops they are Canadian...), Matchbox Twenty & Foo Fighters to name a few.

Now, there is a great site called last.fm for us music lovers, which is fantastic for finding new artists. Over the last year or so I have been constantly astonished by the amount of artists listed on the site of all genres from all countries. Most with strange names & suprising play counts & fan bases considering I have never ever heard of them, so many I have never heard. I have many people to thank on last.fm for indirectly introducing me to music as I surf through their profiles. Coupled with last.fm, Spotify is a great application that streams pretty good quality music (about 128kbps I think...) completely legally for free, at the cost of a few ads every 4 or so songs.

I may have dug myself a hole mentioning last.fm seeing as you could argue that that is my equivelent for a radio. Yes, but no. Sorry, but it's just annoying for me to hear music thats not that great in my opinion on radio, when there is a vast number of great artists out there I would rather listen to when Im on hold (like Hold the Line by Toto for example!) or at the local laundette or wherever.