I have been meaning to write about this particular gripe of mine for a really long time but Chris’ latest post made me suddenly remember that I too had something to complain about on the music front.
It isn’t that hard to figure out, really. If you have been in St. Louis long enough and listened to some of the radio stations out here, you too would be reduced to tears in a similar manner. I demand to know – what in the world is it with these RJs that makes them play the same freaking songs since I arrived in the US ?!? It’s been one a half years and I still listen to the same stupid songs by Avril Lavigne and Lenny Kravitz and Creed and …. there isn’t any respite, is there ? Actually hang on a sec, it isn’t just one a half years – Vidya tells me that the same songs since when she arrived in the US (Aug 2001) have been playing over and over again ! I am, of course, talking about the two most popular radio stations around – 98.1 (Y 98) and 101.1 (The River) – and it beats me that people actually want these songs for so long ! No wait, there must be a conspiracy there, right ? It isn’t the people who want it – it is the record companies who demand a certain degree of exposure of each song they pay the station for and I wouldn’t be surprised if the numbers they demanded were of the order of 10 ^ 9 or something !
This week was also one in which the DOC group saw a lot of action – we had 6 people defending their theses this week. Among the big Six was Anand Krishnan, my roommate and friend, who is now getting ready to pack his bags and go back to India for good. We at 323, Clara Apt #22 are going to miss our very own Cosmo Kramer 
The good thing is, of course, that he won’t miss watching ‘Seinfeld’ since you can now watch it on the Star World channel in India !
Anyway, so it is Friday morning and I am looking forward to a nice weekend getaway to Chicago. Vidya and I are driving down this evening and spending time with her sister and brother-in-law who are going to be leaving the US soon and moving to London. In the middle of all this hectic activity, this is a welcome change indeed.
Here I am on the road again.
There I am, up on stage.
Here I go, playing the star again.
There I go, turn the page.
— Metallica, “Turn The Page”
Yup….your observation on the radio is on the dot! the same ol’crap playin’….I have given up on radio…so i listen to the bbc and get all my favorites from the 1960s onward
Other respite is the vintage vinyl cheap cds’s which are my carrots right now given all the writing that i have to do now!
Read about John Mellencamp’s interview on NPR about the monopoly of radio stations…and lack of protest songs on radio, given the current situation…..good food for thought!
I don’t know what Music you like (I don’t know much about rock and pop either!), but if you want to hear soothing symphonies and classical music, you can tune-in to NPR (http://www.npr.org/). It used to be 88.9MHz in Maryland. I am not sure about St. Louis. NPR makes excellent programs, actually they are a non-profit station and we should support their programs. I have only one thing against them: they use propreitary streaming formats instead of Ogg or MP3, so I don’t listen to them anymore back here in Bangalore, eventhough I have access to WIndows boxen at work.
Yup, NPR is about the only channel that has some amount of variety. I listen more to their talk shows and news shows than music though. The other good thing about NPR is that you dont have to listen to some vague ads for vague products on their shows:-D I have heard ads for naming stars after you, etc on radio !!:-D
Classicial Music at St. Louis 99.1 FM…good station for classical music.
90.7 FM (NPR) – Sunday Jazz program is great! ))