Top 40 music

[Knightmare]

I CANNOT listen to the radio anymore. Most of the music on there is absolute junk. Generic, overplayed, over-produced crap! Everyone sounds the same.
Where is the originality? Where is the soul?
I'm not just talking about Spears, Simpson and Aguilera. Even the so called alternative rock bands sound the same.
I was in car today with my stepson. A song came on that he loves. I asked "Isn't this so-and-so?" Nope. It was some other band that sounds just like them.

I think I've figured it out. When we were kids, we had time to listen to music. We didn't have bills to pay, to go to work, all these other obligations one must do when they reach adulthood.

So when I get in the car, it's either on the talk radio station (not boring liberal/conservative talk. Entertaining talk) or I have my CDs playing.

"Oh, God, not that hippie music again!" my son said to me one day.
THE BEATLES WEREN'T HIPPIES! LOL.

*They were before my time, but I LOVE the Beatles*

[AFPheonix]

This is why I listen to NPR most of the time. When they do have music on late at night, it's usually fun world music, or something that you otherwise wouldn't hear anywhere else.

That, and Car Talk and Wait, Wait rock my world.

[ArenaBoy]

And that is why I haven't listened to FM radio in 6 years, I have been listening to XM though which is quite nice. I also started exploring other genres but my main taste will be alternative, the good stuff not the stuff that Knightmare mentioned. Today's music is relatively crap also but I am however a huge White Stripes fan and Audioslave fan.

Working Fall Out Boy made me realize how bad alternative music has become, half the songs that were played in cars sounded the same, and add that up with local alternative radio station booth blasting the same music where all I heard was distorted guitar and high pitched screaming vocals. I grew up on alternative and it always sounded different, now it's all the same sadly. The thing with alternative was, everything sounded different.

Knightmare, I went through that with some of my friends. They hated the music I always listened to. For now, give me my Sonic Youth, Beck, and Flaming Lips and I'm happy.

[ditchdj]

I'm not just talking about Spears, Simpson and Aguilera. Even the so called alternative rock bands sound the same.

Funny you should mention that. Last year when I lived in Indy there was this retarded Top 40 station bragging about playing the "Music of Now" in all formats, including pop, hip-hop and alternative. But it all pretty much sounds the same.

[digilight]

I've been noticing that to. I hate most of the new music with the exception of some of the new metal and new country. I haven't added to my CD collection since about 1999 or 2000 and I'm begining to feel more like my dad in that aspect. I am, however, trying to raise my kids to enjoy a wide variety of music, everything from jazz, big band and swing, classic rock, metal, all the stuff I call good, LOL.

[rahmota]

I havent really payed that much attention or noticed this as the seek button is my friend and the CD my weapon of choice against boredom. Fortunately by having such a wide variety of musical likes I can usually find something.
But now that you mention it and clicking a few of the songs I have handy they do sound quite a bit similar. Oh well its all part of the I'm so alternative and different attitude that the herd goes through right now.

"Commercialized, homogenized, I've heard that song before....."

[Greenday]

I can't stand it either. All this new music coming out sounds the same. I mean, the music I listen to is bands like Green Day, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, etc. Bands that were quite original with their music. But these female artists/Justin Timberlake, or these alternative bands. I can't tell one from another. It's all crap. I'll stick to my AC/DC and Black Sabbath.

[ShockQueen]

I'm not too sure about the whole "alternative" scene these days, since during the "new wave" movement, the great ones really had an energy to them that just made you feel great! There were many years where I told people that your music collection was NOT complete unless you had:
Nina Hagen
Lene Lovich
Siouxsie and the Banshees
The Cure
The Smiths
(oh heck....and throw some Propaganda in there too - the ORIGINAL lineup!)

I haven't heard anything that really grabbed my ear in some time, although I have gotten into more foreign music, such as In-Grid and Blumchen. To me....heck with the Top 40....give me everything BELOW that line.

[protege]

Ever since Clear Channel gobbled up most of Pittsburgh's larger stations...I rarely listen to the radio. It's the iPod or cds for me. Why? Well, nearly all the stations play *exactly* the same tunes each day. Some days, you can hear the same song multiple times a day! It sucks!

[Ryu]

clear channel is awful
both on the radio and trying to destroy concert venues

[Dreamstalker]

Ugh, yeah. I seem to recall Clear Channel took over KSFR a few years ago; they used to play a lot of awesome indie stuff. Now it just sounds like every other station out there.

[protege]

A similar thing happened here...CC took over 104.7 (The Beat), which would play songs you wouldn't hear anywhere else...and made it into yet another talk radio station, and then turned a few of their other stations into clones of each other.

[ditchdj]

That's why I love satellite radio. I have Sirius and I swear by it. One day I decided to listen to the alternative/retro, hip-hop, and country channels. They ALL have a much more diversified playlist and have much more to offer. Even the Sirius Hits channel is more diversified and has a broader playlist.

[Gawdzillers]

I listen to XM Radio.
Hair band goodness, heavy-hitting metal, interesting modern alternative, classic hip-hop, original blues, jazz, bluegrass, and comedy all in one little pod.:)

[MystyGlyttyr]

I'm not saying it's a generational thing, so don't take that away from what I'm about to say...

But to me, everything that my PARENTS (61 and 56) listen to sounds exactly the same. My mom gets me to download songs for her and I have to get her to come tell me if I've gotten the right songs because I can't tell. Yes, that includes the Beatles! ;)

My sister listened to hair bands throughout my childhood...Poison, Def Leppard, Warrant, etc. I can, with some difficulty, tell them apart, only due to the forced indoctrination that came from sharing a room with her during my early years (and the fact that I've just flat out memorized some of the songs).

However, I can tell Fall Out Boy, Greenday, My Chemical Romance, etc., apart within the first three seconds of a song. I think that's just the direction my ear is inclined towards.

That being said, though, I like a little of everything, from "Hotel California" to "Angry American" to "Quien Soy Yo" to "Ridin Dirty" to "American Idiot". LOL Usually, the louder, the better, though.

[XCashier]

I'm very fortunate to have moved to an area with excellent radio stations. KRVM is the best station I've heard in years. They play anything and everything: blues, world music, folk, rock, alternative, country (I usually switch to a different station when they're playing country! :p ), stuff I've never heard before and probably never will hear again. It's brilliant! :D

From what I've observed over the years, music seems to go in cycles, like the tides or phases of the moon. There'll be a few years of dumb, boring or just plain bad music, then there'll be a few years of smart, interesting, well done music. And right now, it seems to be in the "bad" part of the cycle. :(

[ThePhoneGoddess]

yeah, I never pay attention to what's 'popular' in any genre. I check them all out and pick out the ones with talent in every genre, or even just the ones that sound interesting to me. My friends are amazed that I am familiar with so much stuff in different genres but its because I check it all out, glossing over what sounds the same and picking out what I like.

Two outfits that are hot right now that I really like and find talent in their work are 1) The White Stripes---their guitar work is amazing, the riffs are unforgettable, the lyrics funny, and their songs are unusual and catchy---exactly how a good pop/rock band should sound. They seem to be the only good thing on the rock stations right now. And 2) Amy Winehouse---this woman is the modern Janis Joplin. Her battles over her addictions give her songs an incredible raw power, and endow her beautiful voice with pain and experience, just like Janis. I get chills listening to her.

[powerboy]

I rarely listen to the radio. It's the iPod or cd's for me. Why? Well, nearly all the stations play *exactly* the same tunes each day. Some days, you can hear the same song multiple times a day! It sucks!


It is like that, where I live. there seems to be 10,000 stations and 9,972 will be the same. I do not want to hear a shitty song being played 10 times in one hour. And this one station, will play the same song about 5 times an hour. Now, if I do not have my MP3 player with me, I will listen to my country or nothing at all

[tropicsgoddess]

Me and my fiance only have the radio on a select few stations since we can't stand listening to the top 40. It's all the same craptacular music: no substance,soul and originality.

[horror]

I have my own radio station. It's called an iPod.
The only time I listen to the radio is when I want to catch Coast to Coast.

[daleduke17]

When I was growing up I live in the center of five different radio markets. That sucked. I could tell you what day of the week it was just by turning on the radio:

Sunday- Morning: Top 40 Countdown (either Casey Casem or random country person). Afternoon: NASCAR (Country), idiotic live remotes (Top 40 stations).

Saturday- After 11am: College football or basketball (country usually, or the select top 40 station). After 9pm: idiotic live remotes at the bars (top 40 stations). Some kind of NASCAR talk show (country and rock stations)

Friday- Evening: high school football (depends on which town, could be on any genre of station).

Weeknights - "Open House Party" (top 40 stations), "Nights With Alice Cooper" (rock and classic rock), "Delilah" (either country or light rock).

The other part that sucked was that I was right on the border of Cubs/Cards country. The stations to the north of me would play the Cubs feed for games and the ones to the south would play the Cardinals (it really is a moot point any other time of year surprisingly).

XM radio is great. You'll find me on either channels 7, 8, 9, 20, 26, 30, 48, 49 or sometimes 150 (until baseball season then it will be the XM station with the Red Sox games on).

Also, has anyone also figured out that any station you can't listen to normally, like ones found via good weather or travel, are the ones you want to listen to the most (thank goodness for live streaming*).

*- every so often I'll throw on either WQUL (The Bear - Carbondale, IL), KSHE95 (St. Louis) or KUPD (Phoenix).

[MadMike]

It is like that, where I live. there seems to be 10,000 stations and 9,972 will be the same.

What really cracks me up is that they all claim to be better than the rest of the stations, when they all just play the same handful of songs over and over again.

I used to listen to mainstream radio, until I was flipping thru stations and caught a metal show that was being played on one of the college radio stations. After that, I never went back to Top 40 again.

[protege]

That's what I do too. Pittsburgh radio sucks in the morning...so I'm either listening to CDs or I have the iPod in the car. There's nothing like blasting "The Self-Preservation Society" from the original Italian Job while cruising through the tunnels here :p

[the_std]

I'm not saying it's a generational thing, so don't take that away from what I'm about to say...

But to me, everything that my PARENTS (61 and 56) listen to sounds exactly the same.

Mysty beat me to it, darn it. Whenever I hear statements like this ("Kids these day have no respect!" "People are so rude now!" "No one is respectful of 'blah' anymore!"), I tend to reply with this. Every generation has said the same thing, or a variant of the same thing, about the generation that comes after them. It's just... The progression of how things are. It becomes more apparent to you as different mediums are used and the access to said mediums are increased, but great-great-great-great-great-to-the-nth-grammy and ditto-grampy thought the same thing about Mozart and his contemporaries.

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that my post was meant to invalidate your point. I wholeheartedly agree with the "not being able to listen to it" part. I cannot stand top 40 radio. I just meant to say that it's not a new thing.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

My thing is 80s alternative music.

Look for a book entitled "Our Band Could Be Your Life." Contains profiles of bands like Black Flag, The Minutemen, Butthole Surfers(<---life changing), Minor Threat, Fugazi, Mission of Burma, Husker Du, Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Beat Happening, and maybe one or two more bands I forgot about.

I swore off top-40 and the local rock stations years ago.

[Antipsych]

That's what I do too. Pittsburgh radio sucks in the morning...so I'm either listening to CDs or I have the iPod in the car. There's nothing like blasting "The Self-Preservation Society" from the original Italian Job while cruising through the tunnels here :p

Yes - even DVE's morning show sucks compared to what it was before Scott Paulsen left. They used to do hilarious skits, but now it's just a bunch of overly macho stupid s*** (and I'm a very straight man, in case anyone's wondering).

Like most of you, I can't stand modern brainless, soulless "music," and listen to cds most of the time. Imho, things started going downhill in the 90s, until now there's hardly anything left except the few surviving bands from the 80s and earlier decades, and the few good ones from the 90s. Bring back songs with a balance between melodic music and good vocals, instead of this crap that emphasizes vocal acrobatics and uses minimal music in the background.

Long live Fleetwood Mac!

[ArenaBoy]

No radio for me. Ipod is the way for me. Throw in podcasts of things I like and I'm sold.

Right now I get new sources of music from countless things. Commercials, soundtracks, friends, websites, a musician's influence, video games, forums, heck even a band's sideproject. (Hundred in the Hands is brilliant and different than the Boggs).

My thing is 80s alternative music.

Look for a book entitled "Our Band Could Be Your Life." Contains profiles of bands like Black Flag, The Minutemen, Butthole Surfers(<---life changing), Minor Threat, Fugazi, Mission of Burma, Husker Du, Mudhoney, Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr, Beat Happening, and maybe one or two more bands I forgot about.

I swore off top-40 and the local rock stations years ago.

Best book ever.

[Slytovhand]

I have about 2 hours a week of 'good' stuff... a local community station plays Screaming Symphony, dedicated solely to power/prog/symphonic metal... and it's the only one in the country.

So, occasionally I'll hear something that grabs me enough to go searching elsewhere for it.

Otherwise, just 'alternative' music (which is getting less and less alternative... but still no Britney or Paris...).

What annoys me is hearing that 'metal' is all the same screaming and banging noise.... like, top 40 is any different? If you changed the vocalist, you'd still not notice any difference - but you'd get a whole new album!

[RootedPhoenix]

I think this whole cookie-cutter music thing is because of the music buisness is terrified at letting anything in that doesn't conform to the same "hitmaking" ideal they've got stuck in their heads.

iPods and MP3 players for the win. Internet radio is a wonderful thing too.

[DGoddess]

What really cracks me up is that they all claim to be better than the rest of the stations, when they all just play the same handful of songs over and over again.

We have that problem with some of our local radio stations . . .

Rock 92.3 FM (which is a classic rock station in my part of NC) is a prime example. They will constantly play the same handful of stuff almost every day . . . if I hear "Highway to Heaven" anymore, I think I"ll commit sideways.:rolleyes:

Even worse is when the stations decide to flip-flop their formats. We don't need 5 country stations. We have 2 classic rock stations, 1 adult contemporary (and even it sucks now, as it's either the same stuff from the 80's/90's/00's or the crap Delilah plays on her syndicated show,) 1 rap/hip hop station/2 top 40 stations, 2 Christian contemporary/gospel stations, 1 Tejana station, 1 that last I checked it played mostly 80's stuff, 1 college jazz station, 1 urban contemporary and one that plays pop/soft rock faves from the 70's/80's and 90's.

The last country station we got was once our only OLDIES station - and that oldies station was about the only one I was listening to (other than the adult contemporary one on occasion) any length of time.

I'm now usually either listening to CD's, XM radio through the tv (which we have courtesy of DirecTV) or Internet radio on occasion (where I can find tailor made stations.)

You can even set up a custom radio station with Pandora (the songs are voted on and those you don't like, they don't play) . . . which can play some really good music as well.

Local radio sucks canal water anymore.:(

[IDrinkaRum]

I love me my I-Pod. Our best Oldies station went from the 50's and 60's to the 60's, 70's and 80's! (or is it just the 70's and 80's? I can't remember). There is another Oldies station, but it broadcasts from a little bit south of me, and sometimes I can't tune it in properly (I might be able to listen to it from its website, but I'm not sure as I haven't checked it out lately).

I like Country, but not all of it and it seems the 2 prominent Country stations on the air around here both have the same handful of songs. :( Like station one will play the songs A-Z and the second will play them Z-A. We just can't win.

ETA: I just went to the website of the Oldies station (it comes out of Fredericksburg/Orange county - which I'm surprised I can get it 1/2 the time on my radio as that's really far out) and I can listen to the station live on my computer! *dances* Now I can have my oldies again! Woohoo!