Time To Kill Ugly Radio!

Here in Toronto, we have a radio station that calls itself The Edge 102.1. It used to be the rebel among mainstream radio. In the late 70's and early 80's it was the only station that was comfortable playing The Ramones and the Velvet Underground, and than following it up with a 25 minute masterpiece by Peter Gabriel's Genesis. Throughout the 80's, it introduced us to The Smiths, The Cure, The Charlatans and whatever else the other radio stations would not play.

However, in the mid-nineties, something happened. The Edge completely lost its Edge. It still claimed to be playing "Alternative" music, yet I have not heard anything truly alternative on it for years. I had always been an "Edge Member" and, purportedly because of the popularity of podcasts and satelite radio, they started sending out a survey to me that claimed that they wanted to get a better idea of what we were thinking of the station. So I remember thinking "this sounds like a great idea!" So on that first survey, they sent sound bites of several songs on their playlist, and asked if we liked the songs, and if we felt they were being played enough. So I made it clear that EVERY SINGLE SONG THEY CHOSE WAS WAY OVERPLAYED!!!

Well, here we are, a year later, and The Edge still plays Coldplay, Foo Fighters and Nickelback approximately 83 billion times a day. So I unsubscribed from doing their surveys. When I did so, they said that they "would love to know why I'm leaving." Although I'm fairly sure they don't even read comments such as mine, just for fun, I wrote them the following:

"I'm tired of doing your surveys because all they have accomplished is that they have allowed people to choose what they want to listen to based on your choices; choices of which contain no EDGE whatsoever; although the name of your station claims otherwise. People need to hear something new; they need to learn how to choose for themselves again. I want to hear DJ's that love what they're presenting. A DJ's assignment should not be only to play what the corporate cronies want them to play, but they should be commissioned to go out and FIND THE NEXT BIG THING! In the clubs, on the streets, through podcasts. The greatest band that ever lived is not The Beatles, The Stones, U2 and certainly NOT Coldplay. The greatest band ever is the band that is stuck playing in their local bar undiscovered because radio stations like The Edge, The Mix, The Jack or whatever you want to call yourselves doesn't have the time, the desire or, dare I say, THE LOVE OF MUSIC to go out and find them. I thought your survey was going to give me an opportunity to express thoughts like these, but, of course I was wrong. So, continue to fool people into thinking they love the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album; continue to keep your listeners away from choice so that talented bands like Coldplay can be content to settle for mediocrity, instead of creating the masterpiece they're no doubt capable of, and continue to keep your DJ's as plastic as humanly possible so that the love of music does not even have to be in their job description. And I must stress that this rant is certainly not directed to the people, bands or listeners involved, but simply to the system that seems to be currently in place. You've got a job to do, and I can appreciate that. But I no longer have any desire to participate in a survey that obviously isn't going to make any significant difference to the choices you offer on your station. Thank you for reading this."

It's time to kill ugly radio.
"Plastic people are such a drag!" - Frank Zappa

Photo above from the inner sleeve of Zappa's Absolutely Free CD.