Rock Radio

So my CD player in my car seems to have died. For a long time it would skip frequently but also have stretches where it played fine. Over the last two weeks, the most I can get is a song or two before it starts skipping. This has left me to just my radio, harkening back to my youth. With awful Chicago sports teams on sports radio at night, this has lead me back to the FM dial. And so far so good.

The biggest revelation was the rather small number of commercials, at least with respect to sports radio. I like the Boers and Bernstein Show from 2-6 on 670, but know that it's all commercials and updates in the last 30 minutes or every hour. This allows me more options, especially as I flip between stations.

I have also been pleasantly surprised by the quality of music. Then again, maybe I just like the formats of enough stations. Probably wouldn't work if I didn't flip around. For I like the occasional 80s song but doubt I could listen to 80s for weeks at a time. I'm also happy that rock radio I found leans heavily on 70s and 80s rock over new crap.

Best of all is Chicago's finest, WXRT. This is the station I end up on the most, as they play music I like. Somewhat eclectic and definitely trying to appeal to people like me. In fact, I feel like I'm entering a time warp. This Tuesday they will be broadcasting Wilco's show from The Riviera live. It's been at least 10 years since I listened to the radio for a live show, but that's exactly what I will be doing Tuesday.

It would be easy (and probably wrong) to chalk all this up to satellite radio. It's very likely that Chicago is an exception or I'll get sick of FM radio soon or that my memory is flawed. But for right now, I'm enjoying the radio.



Tags:

*radio*music *rock *indie *punk*WXRT*Chicago *Wilco