Re: DAB is shite.
> US radio has always been better and with much more choice than UK, mainly because they don't pay royalties on every track they play.
I don’t think that is what is being referred to. US radio stations are heavily talk based, many with no music at all, just the sort of thing I wanted when growing up here in the UK.
My local BBC radio station was all talk for most of my youth luckily, but even they went and started playing music generally throughout (not just during music focused programmes) which was a nightmare.
Almost all music is unlistenable to me. It is not a stylistic choice, just like not liking the smell of coffee isn’t. I literally cannot abide being around music that I don’t like, and my tastes for which I do like are extremely narrow, limited to very specific bands or only certain songs. As far as genres are concerned, only the styles you find in the 80's and early 90's generally work for me. Everything before the 80's stands out as, horrid. And quite soon after the mid 90's almost all music I would hear thought the day was simply distasteful, and continues to be.
However, some things have gotten better as in recent years a resurgence in the styles used in 80's electronic, 80's new wave etc have surfaced and its starting to sound a little better.
Music with lyrics is the worst offender. It seems without lyrics many more tunes work fine in my head. Probably this is why I only like certain songs and bands. For example, anything by ABBA makes my skin crawl. Everyone loves ABBA, even the other 90's teens in school would all sing ABBA songs from time to time. I was totally shocked that anyone from my generation could even stand to hear a single not of such 70's "eeeewww". But somehow, they loved the stuff.
It wasn’t a choice, or snobbery. I literally felt the need to run from a room if music that wasn’t compatible with my brain was in earshot. I wasn’t trying to show off my dislike, it was like having mental pain, not physical pain, more "in my head". Over the years I learnt that most people just "get pleasure" from music because it happens to be music. I have no idea what that is all about as I have never felt "pleasure" from music, unlike when eating chocolate. Music is noise. But, I do get pleasure from music I somehow like and I can form a "bond" with that song over time, like getting used to a smell, it slowly gains value.
It may also explain why I was never able to dance. I can move like I'm dancing etc, but movement and music being linked was like saying the moon and flower petals are linked. I couldn’t see it. At most, I may tap a finger, just a finger to a beat, and if I really liked that song and it had started to feel pleasurable, I'd tap more fingers, as if I was playing the instrument.
But 90% ov everything I would hear all over UK FM was total useless musical shitty hell. I was surrounded by people who were obsessed with it, still am, and it felt like they were all on some drug.
FM had NOTHING for me. AM had NOTHING for me. Till I discovered talk radio, BBC R4 was too old and stuffy for me as a kid, now I lap it up but my local BBC station was exciting! I actually was getting excited over radio, where it was ALL TALK and PHONE IN'S. Talk Sport had a general talk/phone in segment relegated to around midnight. James Whale, Mike Dickin and others were voices that soothed me to sleep in a world awash with terrible sound pollution called modern music. No, I didn’t like sport either, BBC 5 Live and Talk Sport during the day were avoided.
Classic FM. I remember when that was opening. They played birdsong as a test transmission. I still have a recording of that wonderful sound, it was on DAB later so I recorded it. Classic FM was tolerable, I'm not a classical music swat or anything, but that music is generally way better than ABBA and I can happily exist in the same environment as it.
So, I love radio, as a technology, as a way to communicate. I love AM and FM broadcast, but they still offer nothing to me at all. DAB however does, several talk radio stations are there, plus stations that play only 80's music which frankly is a godsend.
When I read about US radio I'm jealous. Sure they play music there too, royalty free as you say, but there they also have loads and loads of talk!