|
|
|
Let's face it -- most radio stinks. It's flavorless, indistinct, and safe (read: boring). The airwaves are publicly owned, and anyone afforded the opportunity to use them for profit should be required to serve the public interest by providing interesting and challenging programming, but those days are, for the most part, long gone.
All of which is just one more reason to love the internet. I'm the first to admit there's much to hate about the net, too, but today I'm feeling warm and fuzzy toward it.
Thanks to the internet, one can seek out those few outposts of quality radio, even when their broadcast signal falls a couple of thousand miles short of reaching you.
There are any number of online musical outlets I enjoy, but today I recommend to you a terrific public station that operates out of Seattle, Washington: KEXP-FM.
The station features just an amazing array of great music, with an emphasis on indie rock. There are specialty programs on the KEXP schedule devoted to the blues, rockabilly, African music, reggae, ambient music, and much more, but it's the daily musical melange as heard weekday mornings and afternoons that I especially recommend to you.
Here are the top 25 listings on their current playchart:
1. Snow Patrol - Final Straw
2. Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
3. Modest Mouse - Float On/I've Got It All (Most)
4. The Cooper Temple Clause - Kick Up the Fire, and Let the Flames Break Loose
5. Grant-Lee Phillips - Virginia Creeper
6. The Walkmen - Bows + Arrows
7. Zero 7 - When it Falls
8. Cloud Cult - Aurora Borealis
9. Air - Talkie Walkie
10. Camera Obscura - Underachievers Please Try Harder
11. Skywave - Synthstatic
12. Life at Sea - Is There a Signal Coming Through?
13. Stereolab - Margerine Eclipse
14. Aqualung - Still Life
15. Telefon Tel Aviv - Map of What is Effortless
16. Norah Jones - Feels Like Home
17. Blonde Redhead - Misery Is a Butterfly
18. Unkle - Never, Never Land
19. TV On The Radio - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
20. Seachange - Glitterball ep
21. Jem - Finally Woken
22. The Get Up Kids - Guilt Show
23. Preston School of Industry - Monsoon
24. Federico Aubele - Gran Hotel Buenos Aires
25. The Elected - Me First
There's some great stuff in that mix. Not only did I first hear many of these bands on KEXP, I might never have heard them at all if it weren't for kexp.org. If you don't know many of these artists, you owe it to yourself to give KEXP's audio stream a listen. It might soon be your favorite station, even if you can't pick it up with your clock radio.
(Of the above artists, I especially recommend TV on the Radio to you. I first heard them on KEXP, and I'm loving both their 2003 EP and their recent full-length record. In fact, that's the only downside of being a regular KEXP listener: Purchasing all the great music they turn you on to can take a big bite out of your budget.)
Posted by brett at 03:17 PM | TrackBack