When The Airwaves Rocked
“When I was young
I’d listen to the radio
Waitin’ for my favorite songs
When they played I’d sing along
It made me smile.”
— Yesterday Once More, The Carpenters
This morning while getting ready for the day I felt the urge to turn on my little AM/FM radio. Usually, it’s only there for looks, but as REO Speedwagon belted out the chorus of “Take It On the Run” I was instantly transported to the past when radio was a prevalent part of my life and the excitement I felt knowing that people all over the city were listening to the same song at the same time.
I remembered a time as a kid when I was away at camp for a week and felt panicky that I was missing out on all the new music only to come back and hear this strange new song over the airways, “Don’t Worry Be Happy”…that will date me for sure. But I began listening to the radio at a very young age and would even sneak it when I should be sleeping because music was such a thrill to my developing mind.
These days I mostly discover new music from digital media sources and occasionally word of mouth. But at one time in my life, there was hardly a moment of free time when I wasn’t tuning into my favorite local radio stations and enjoying all the latest hits either at home or with friends and family. I would even dream about how fun it would be to be a radio DJ someday and be the first to hear the best music to pass onto the world. But no more.
Sure, I occasionally still listen to the radio for political talk, classic rock, or the Christian station, but that is almost exclusively when I’m in the car and still quite rare. The days of relying on the radio to inform me of all the hot new music is long gone. No more tuning into Casey Kasem’s top 40 every weekend either, hoping my favorite song would take the number one spot. In fact, a quick look at the Billboard Top 100 tells me how little I know about what’s currently charting.
This change of focus has so much less to do with age or my passion for music, but a shift in culture and the music industry as a whole. Where once people strongly identified with what radio stations they listened to, no one really even asks the question anymore. I remember the first thing I would do when visiting someone in another city was to familiarize myself with their FM dial, but now, despite living in West Michigan for the last 7 years I’m not sure I could name one station.
The way radio once used to be tells me one thing — there is a benefit to some centralized public institutions. I believe we are currently suffering from a case of too many options. Radio once bonded us as a community and a nation — we were all essentially listening to the same things and could share and discuss with ease what bands we loved and which songs we loved or hated. Now it’s rare that I even have a discussion about music with someone where we both know the same artist unless it goes back 20+ years or someone recently made headlines for some salacious behavior.
So I started thinking this morning about the reason behind the declining interest in radio as a reigning musical format. Like many services on the internet, it’s still free but requires putting up with ads, so maybe it’s something else.
The real problem, I think, is that people don’t like the music being played on the radio anymore. I even hear young people often say that they prefer music from decades past over what is current. That was never true when I was growing up. The quickest way to be labeled a geek was for people to find out you were listening to oldies, or worse yet, disco. Now kids wear it as a badge of honor to be out of touch with their current generation.
And the reason for this comes down to the same thing that ruins all great institutions — bureaucratic control. Where once the radio was an open forum where any band could hit the charts if people liked and requested the song enough, now we are told what 10 bands we can listen to and what songs will be hits as each vapid hook is played over and over again. Gone are the days of DJs having the freedom to spin a record that some random band sent, or take open requests from fans.
And now the killjoys are doing the same with movies and television and collectively we’re losing interest. Just look at the dwindling numbers of award show viewership. People don’t care like they used to because they aren’t being represented. And it’s only going to infiltrate more of our lives down to what food we can eat and opinions we can listen to and possibly even what books we can read. Even sports are not safe from the suits that know better. And the only way to stop this is if we refuse to be force-fed bureaucratic nonsense and stop tuning in. But we are becoming a mentally lazy people and at what point will it become not worth the fight?
Yes, some centralized public institutions are valuable and enjoyable for the public to partake of, but only when it’s run by WE THE PEOPLE.
