Radio Days...

So I'm kind of like John McCain in that I really don't listen to the radio anymore. (I had heard somewhere that Mr. McCain claims that he never got back into popular music after having been in the prison camp for 5 years...) for me it's been a considerably less drastic decline from radio listening. I blame the iPod. Now that I can have every song I own at my fingertips I have no need to listen to the radio. The radio makes me too tense anyway... to paraphrase Carrie Fisher-- I need instant gratification. I always found myself toggling between the various stations on the car radio because somewhere out in the airwaves might be that *perfect* song. Now, with the iPod on shuffle, it's just one button away... I can continually go through music I already know that I like.

To be fair, I do still listen to public radio (NPR and the Met's live Opera broadcasts-- which used to be a fave in college... sit on a Saturday afternoon with a dijon burger from the Ivy room studying to live opera? let me tell you that's a way to pack on those freshman fifteen... but I digress).

Before the iPod and a format change I was also a big fan of Mix 102.7 (the old Disco/Dance station out of NYC). Out of all radio stations I find that a disco channel has the highest likelihood of playing music I'll like.

Luckily, though, not listening to the radio has not made me completely out of touch with "today's music". I noticed this the other night when I was up to the wee hours drafting a Loan Agreement. I was in the kitchen and had on one of the music choice channels on tv-- it was "adult alternative" (I'm not sure why I stopped on this particular station...) but in the end I actually heard enough songs that are of the genre typically played in Starbucks/JCrew's dressing room/commercials for cars or soap operas that I recognized a few as one's I'd want to download. Finally, I knew the name of such and such and whatnot. Better than the radio which never seems to tell you who sang the song that you actually liked.

The other song-listening anomaly which I suffer from is repetition. Ana once remarked how in high school I would listen to the same song over and over again (in particular, "Get Connected" by Stereo MCs, which thanks to Miss A's mention I went and downloaded). Yes, even over fifteen years later my listening style remains the same. I'll get a song in my head and I'll listen to it literally like a broken record. How else could I have learned all of the words to "Whatta Man", "Shoop" and "It's the End of the World as We Know It"?

Moral of the story? iTunes gift certificates are always welcome.