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Commentary: Where's the Dance in Radio? (March 2, 2004)Has San Diego become America's Behindest City? With radio shuttling the pop dance tunes to weekend late nights, it's no wonder that former listeners of Q106, B100, the old XHRM and Power 106, are flocking to Internet radio and satellite for fun music that appeals to them, while the locals Z90, Channel 933, My, More 98.9, and Star shower the region with a mix of predictable rap, teen, hip hop, soft, and contemporary music. Magic 92.5 can't seem to get a modern groove on either as it plays just the old songs from 20-30 years ago.KBIG 104.3 from Los Angeles has a weeknight radio show on playing remixes of today's hits called "Boogie Nights", but this is the kind of music that should be played also during the day when people are at work or commuting, not relegated to after people are home and watching Jeopardy! and reruns of The Simpsons and don't bother to turn on the radio then. What's with this generation of radio music program directors? They have no vision. They're ruining radio with extreme dullness and bland popular music, but you can't blame them for their lack of music education. The fault of not educating the students with a well-rounded education in music belongs to the public school system whose idea of educating students in music appreciation is for teachers to take them to the assembly and have them listen to some no-name classical orchestra playing music that no student can relate to whatsoever. That's an education? This is what happened to me in Pershing Junior High and I didn't learn a g--damn thing about music during the entire 13 years in K-12 schools. I learned more about music appreciation in a two-hour Dr. Demento radio program than I ever did when I was wasting 13 years of my life in eight public schools. An old Warner Brothers "Looney Tunes" or "Merry Melodies" cartoon timing classical music pieces to funny cartoon gags provided me with a better appreciation of that genre of music than any ill-prepared teacher in school ever did. By making music fun, radio is enjoyable, which is why you see many people tuning in classical radio and daydreaming about Warner Brothers cartoon characters doing whatever they can imagine to the tunes of Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart, and others. BTW: I voted no on proposition 55. It's just more money going to waste for a 19th-century model of education that has no relevance in the 21st century, with peer pressure from bullies and other miseducated kids (I been there, I know) towards doing vices ruining your children and teachers who don't understand how to teach a kid who isn't interested in learning and who would rather watch TV and play video games. With TV so prevalent for today's youth, more than it ever was when I was a kid, the educators should come up with a cirriculm that incorporates video games and television that makes children want to have so much fun that they don't realize that they're learning something that can help them in their adult years. I would also use the money for beefed-up security to control unruly bullies and place the bullies in a special bully school where they have to learn to tolerate runt, stupid, gay, and transgender children and be forced to refrain from smoking and doing vices. Where is that in proposition 55?' It's just more money going down the drain. Instead, let's have the parents who can afford to have children pay a mandatory fee of $5,000 per child per year towards the school system. Let's see how many adults will start refraining from making more children that our taxpayers cannot support. Which brings me back to the lack of dance music in San Diego radio. This is why it's a torturous day when some idiot at work puts on My, Star, Z, or Channel and we get a lot of bland music, with no fun music such as dance or novelty like the old KCBQ 1170 and B100 used to play. I also like to hear the fun rock and roll like Darkness and Jet, yet they don't bother to play them either. Anyway, a radio show called "Tuned In Radio, The New Rhythm Of The Nation" counts down the top ten dance hits of the week and they have a website http://www.tunedinradio.com. Perhaps some of the local music directors at Star, Magic, My, Z, Channel, and More can visit the website and get some clues for ideas on what to program on their bland radio stations. The Tuned In Top 10 For Mar 3 - 9, 2004 Show 644
1. "All Things", by Wildlife with Simone Denny (label: Capitol)
And to purchase the dance songs, please visit Amazon.com and put some fun music into your CD player. Look for CD singles that have remixes of popular songs on the website. Net Radio Stations for Radio Music Directors (March 2, 2004)In a related story, webcaster Live365.com and industry news source Radio and Records have launched a series of Internet radio channels designed to expose radio programmers to new music."Going For Adds Radio" features six contemporary music streams, to be hosted by different major-market air talents each week, spotlighting the songs "being worked" to radio. You can read more about "GFA Radio" in today's issue of "RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter." It's online now at http://www.kurthanson.com/. |