Internet Killed the VeeJay Star

We have been talking about digital music and radio in our class this week. It makes me sad that the romanticism of music radio has disappeared over the last 10 years. We read an article in class called “The World is Streaming In” that discusses the advantages of digital radio. More band width from digital more chances to hear more interesting radio. I have a satilight radio and I was very excited at the prospect of “cable TV for my radio” and, interestling, my radio has turned into the same sad device as the television. In the immortal words of Bruce Springsteen, “We switched 'round and 'round 'til half-past dawn/There was fifty-seven channels and nothin' on.” (1992)


Only 57 channels? Now that my beloved XM Radio merged with Sirius (I chose XM specifically because I did not want to support the Howard Stern School of Broadcasting) I find that the radio product is diluted. A number of satellite radio listeners I know agree that they liked their respective choices better before the merger. More choices have brought a lower quality of radio product.

I also think it is interesting as music radio becomes less of an art form as the vehicle of music will the music itself become more commercial and trite? You have to “train” your Pandora to send you the new music you want and still you have no “radio personalities” through which you come to love new music. Thanks, Howard. I blame Stern again for the decline in music radio. Radio became a place to hear poop jokes and dirty talk to strippers and, of course, lesbian strippers. In this sense I think Stern brought down the dignity of the medium. AM radio has political talk, which can get feisty (see Michael Savage) but at least it does so under the guise of political entertainment. Stern is just dirty for money.

Now you can hear no new music and no Thank you, Dear Lord, for NPR and all of the shows that help remind us that radio can do amazing things (A shout out to my friend Gina at WDUQ in Pittsburgh.) But the days of waiting to hear from that radio personality to talk about a new song are so far gone – the day we turned to VeeJays to do it for us on MTV the medium killed the radio star.