I’ve noticed that a lot of bloggers like to have theme days. (Probably because alliteration is fun.) I thought I’d jump in on this action. But only this once. I have a job and school and pets, I don’t have time to find music for you people.
I just wanted to share 2 stations I’ve really been enjoying lately. I know a lot of you have sworn off radio and only listen to itunes, Pandora, last.fm, etc. Because for the most part, radio sucks. Especially here in Houston. It’s common knowledge we have some of the worst stations in the country. Aside from the heat and humidity, our sucky radio stations are a top complaint from people who move here. I have to be honest; I’ve lived here my whole life and was not really aware of how bad they were until a few years ago. An on-again-off-again boyfriend who had lived all over the U.S. would complain incessantly about it. But then again, he was a music snob, and generally annoying. Wait. What was I talking about? Riiiight, music!
Like I said, I know many of you don’t bother with the radio anymore. But if I’m just going on a short trip to the grocery store or something I don’t really feel like digging my iphone out of my purse and picking out music and then disconnecting it when I get to the store and then reconnecting it when I head back home. So I’m happy that I found a new station to listen to!
You see, on Thanksgiving when my car battery died and I had to replace it, I had to redo all my presets on my stereo and I discovered a new (to me) station. I don’t know how long 103.7 has been “adult alternative” but I swear it used to be a classic rock station. I dunno. Doesn’t matter. The point is, it consistently plays a good mix of music AND I haven’t yet noticed that they overplay a certain set of songs. Unlike all our other stations that pick 20 songs and just put them on a loop. (Playing Cee-Lo’s Fuck You every twenty minutes! No Mix 96.5, Fuck YOU.)
They play a lot of stuff from the 90’s that I love like Smashing Pumpkins, Green Day and Cake. And they throw in stuff from the 70’s like The Who and The Rolling Stones, but they also play recent music. I even heard something that sounded a bit country the other day.
Then there’s the British station I listen to online. I can’t remember how I came across it, but I lovelovelove it! NME radio rocks my socks. You’ve probably heard of NME magazine, and once again I’m probably late to the party and you probably already know about NME radio. And if that’s the case: Why didn’t you tell me?!
They play a lot of bands I’ve never heard of, but they also throw some American stuff in there, too. As I’m typing this they’re playing Lou Reed’s Walk on the Wild Side. Almost all the songs they play are pretty upbeat so I like listening when I’m cleaning or cooking. Every couple of minutes I hear something new I like and run over to my computer to see the name of the band and try to remember it so I can look it up later. But then I usually forget. Here’s some I actually remembered. Notice that these aren’t new, but they were new to me.
And here’s some I found from browsing their new music tab on the website.
I love it when the members of the band just look so happy to be performing!
What are you listening to?
2 things – 1, I started to read this before heading to work and it ended up leading to me getting the song ‘manic monday’ stuck in my head. Damn you.
2 – If you’re doing arts and crafts or bored around the casa, a kind of fun thing to do is check out the SxSW mix they put together. They have 200 songs, and you can easily skip to the next if the song sucks. It’s a good variety so it’s good background music, and if it turns out something is good, time to stop what you’re doing and dance.
1- HA!
2- Sweet! Thanks, I’ll check it out.