Sorry for my pity party post yesterday. I am not usually one for "oh poor me." I am more a "why does everything suck for everyone" type of whiner. Anyway, being Thanksgiving time and all, I am definitely grateful for many things. However, I am not going to blog about them right now. Instead I am going to bitch about the state of Chicago radio.
In my car (a glorious 1998 Honda Civic), my listening options are vast: I have a cord from my TAPE DECK that allows me to plug in my iPod, CD player (when I remember to bring batteries. And CDs), or XM radio (when I take advantage of their free trials. I used to have a subscription when I commuted, but now it wouldn't make sense to pay for it unless I bought an inside unit for my house. Which I really want to do because I totally miss the Elvis and Backspin [old skool hip hop] channels). I can also choose to listen to Chicago's shitty "array" (and I use that term lightly, since there are only a handful of actual music channels these days) of stations. Of course there is always the NPR option, which I do choose sometimes, but when I'm driving in the Civic that means I'm alone (Romy's car seat is in our other car) so I'd like to use that time to listen to music I want to listen to (instead of "Daydream Believer," which we are forced to listen to on repeat every time we get in the car with Romy.) Wow this post has a lot of asides. Yesterday, for the second day in a row, I had to drive an hour each way to the doctor's office for the second day in a row to get the skinny on my upcoming surgery. To add suck to the suckpile, the cord of my tape deck adapter broke. That meant no iPod, no CD player, and no XM radio (for which I'm in free trial time right now). Four hours left with Chicago radio. I guess I can see, what with all of our choices now for car listening, why radio might be struggling. However, if I drive North towards Milwaukee, they still have some excellent radio stations. Their oldies channel is outstanding (they play actual oldies from the 50s and 60s), as is their choice of hip hop stations. Chicago's radio has turned into a wasteland of random talk channels and Billy Joel. I swears every time I flip through the five music channels (I'm not counting channels that play country because I never stop on those), at least two of them have on a Billy Joel song. Or Elton John. Or John Melloncamp. Or that freakin' Adele song (how does anyone like that song anymore after hearing it 70 trillion times?). Chicago radio is one boring mush of lame. The "rock" channel was playing fucking Oasis yesterday. And the hip hop channels? Do they play ANYTHING other than Drake? I like Drake (that's Jimmy Brooks to you and me, Rusty), but where's the variety? I like my radio segregated: METAL, HIP HOP, OLDIES. Our oldies station plays 80s music! And not even good 80s music! All of this forced me to dig into my trunk and pull out the remnants of my cassette collection, which had me driving to such gems as Eric Johnson's "Ah Via Musicom," Rush's "Chronicles," the "Pretty in Pink" soundtrack and Special K's cassingle of "I Got a Man." Sigh. Last night I went to Target and picked up a new cassette adapter (thank turkey, they still sell those!). Not that I'll get to use it today. No, today it's a family ride in the station wagon. Time to get ready for two glorious hours of cold shaving razors and white knights on their steeds.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
In my car (a glorious 1998 Honda Civic), my listening options are vast: I have a cord from my TAPE DECK that allows me to plug in my iPod, CD player (when I remember to bring batteries. And CDs), or XM radio (when I take advantage of their free trials. I used to have a subscription when I commuted, but now it wouldn't make sense to pay for it unless I bought an inside unit for my house. Which I really want to do because I totally miss the Elvis and Backspin [old skool hip hop] channels). I can also choose to listen to Chicago's shitty "array" (and I use that term lightly, since there are only a handful of actual music channels these days) of stations. Of course there is always the NPR option, which I do choose sometimes, but when I'm driving in the Civic that means I'm alone (Romy's car seat is in our other car) so I'd like to use that time to listen to music I want to listen to (instead of "Daydream Believer," which we are forced to listen to on repeat every time we get in the car with Romy.) Wow this post has a lot of asides. Yesterday, for the second day in a row, I had to drive an hour each way to the doctor's office for the second day in a row to get the skinny on my upcoming surgery. To add suck to the suckpile, the cord of my tape deck adapter broke. That meant no iPod, no CD player, and no XM radio (for which I'm in free trial time right now). Four hours left with Chicago radio. I guess I can see, what with all of our choices now for car listening, why radio might be struggling. However, if I drive North towards Milwaukee, they still have some excellent radio stations. Their oldies channel is outstanding (they play actual oldies from the 50s and 60s), as is their choice of hip hop stations. Chicago's radio has turned into a wasteland of random talk channels and Billy Joel. I swears every time I flip through the five music channels (I'm not counting channels that play country because I never stop on those), at least two of them have on a Billy Joel song. Or Elton John. Or John Melloncamp. Or that freakin' Adele song (how does anyone like that song anymore after hearing it 70 trillion times?). Chicago radio is one boring mush of lame. The "rock" channel was playing fucking Oasis yesterday. And the hip hop channels? Do they play ANYTHING other than Drake? I like Drake (that's Jimmy Brooks to you and me, Rusty), but where's the variety? I like my radio segregated: METAL, HIP HOP, OLDIES. Our oldies station plays 80s music! And not even good 80s music! All of this forced me to dig into my trunk and pull out the remnants of my cassette collection, which had me driving to such gems as Eric Johnson's "Ah Via Musicom," Rush's "Chronicles," the "Pretty in Pink" soundtrack and Special K's cassingle of "I Got a Man." Sigh. Last night I went to Target and picked up a new cassette adapter (thank turkey, they still sell those!). Not that I'll get to use it today. No, today it's a family ride in the station wagon. Time to get ready for two glorious hours of cold shaving razors and white knights on their steeds.
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
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4 comments:
Chicago radio is horrible. It's like they don't even try.
I usually listen to XRT, which I've listened to since I was in utero, but occasionally I get sick of it and switch to NPR.
I feel bad. Was that post too negative? XRT is okay sometimes, but they still repeat that Adele song too much!
for when your not writing or listening to the radio-
http://www.megustalo.blogspot.com/
(i like it)
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