Does anyone still listen to the radio?

Just got a root canal and the endodontist office was playing instrumental versions of Adele and the titanic theme on an actual radio station. I was stuck in that chair getting drilled on and was wondering what stations out there deliver the goods for me and my tribe.

sometimes I just want to put on some old fashioned radio and not invest myself in what’s gonna come on next. Delivered by shitty iPhone speakers via tunein. I listen to some soma, intergalactic, penryn. Wbgo when the lady likes. Wqxr when I’m feeling old and wise.

I’ve been swept up by podcasts Bandcamp Mixcloud soundcloud your mom etc. But for the needs of a sometimes passive listener.....tell me what’s good watmm.

I only listen to the local college station, npr, and shortwave. For music, news, and recording noises/number stations - respectively. Haven't really branched out but our college station (V89 WVFS) has some excellent programs such as Staring At The Sun, which is all experimental music. 

Man that's wild, I think for a least the past 5 years or so every visit to the dental sciences has been soundtracked by spotify or iheartradio or whatnot. 

Pretty much everything commercial airwaves radio these days is shit.  In retrospect I'm not sure it ever wasn't.  Occasionally you'd hear a jam on the classic rock (e.g. e.g. zep), alternative rock (breeders, jane's addiction, etc.) or even the oldies station (motown), but to do so you had to endure copious amounts of mediocre-to-shite tracks nevermind the COMMERCIALS.  I do however owe my local college radio station WRIU a debt of gratitude for opening my mind to hiphop and reggae back in my high-school days.  Afternoons 3-6 would be hiphop from the likes of epmd, wu-tang, gang starr, etc. and most of the time it'd be mixed on 2 turntables live, and most of those dudes could cut the record down to the bone.

My wife does listen to local NPR in the car which I can tolerate in doses (OTOH I keep a usb stick in mine loaded with a shitton of musics so I can bump Autechre, drexciya, madlib, basic channel out me boomin hyundai stock system on the regular).  My go-to zinger when we find ourselves in a stuff-white-ppl-like scenario is "dayum, lotta of NPR listeners up in dis shit."

In store retail pipe-in music is way worse than any of the above IMHO. For sanity I always wear headphones when on a supermarket run, and one time I ran into my wife's friend, who was too eager to jibe this seemingly odd behavior (we're cool, I've been known to rag on her for certain aesthetic choices more than once).  I basically said something to the effect of "if I had to listen to the aural feces pumped through this Stop 'n Shop on a weekly basis I would've offed myself long ago" whereupon she could only acknowledge the validity of my argument.

Listen to NPR on occasion. Sometimes there's decent brief intermissions, including BoC.

I am the music director for my local college noncom station and i can attest that our selection is the very best. also in fairbanks lots of people only have a radio so it still is a good source of music for lots of locals.

yes, quite a bit when driving and even when at home (bbc 6)

sometimes I listen to the Today show on bbc 4

Radio 4 and RTE Radio 1.

I like talk radio. 

If I'm listening to the radio I pretty much exclusively listen to KEXP. Pretty eclectic blend of stuff, sometimes shit but more often than not very enjoyable. DJ Riz plays some wacky shit in the late night slots. http://kexp.org/

BBC Radio 3 is my goto. Lots of Classical pieces I've never heard before, some jazz and even avant garde stuff every now and then.

dunno, listen to some cultural talk radio every now and then (like once per year) and that’s that.. radio has been largely irrelevant to me.. tho recently bumped into this local experimental community internet radio station:

https://cashmereradio.com

they have an actual studio with live shows and a bar with good drinks & it’s so underground it actually hurts. But yea the community vibe is good, it’s maybe something that only the medium of radio can deliver, dunno..

also NTS is fkn super https://www.nts.live

NPR, local R&B and Rap stations, and every once in a while I'll swap over to AM and see what strangeness they're on about on talk radio and religious stations.

In the Boston area it’s 100.7 WZLX for classic rock and that’s it because AUX cord

i listen to quite a bit of talk radio - LBC mostly.

Dentist -> Merzbow

College radio is where it's at. When I was in the bay area I'd always listen to KALX or KFJC when I didn't know what else to put on. Discovered a lot of quality shit through those stations.

just gonna say i feel lucky growing up listening to the radio at a young age hearing grunge and alt rock

those were great days

and i'm gonna say that i feel like those days were better than these days.

but i'm probably wrong, every generation feels that way about THEIR music.

that said, i listen to the rock station in the background sometimes, 70s 80s 90s stuff but i can't say that it gets me off :0

i really enjoy talk radio, just turning it on and listening to subjects that i've never explored but i rarely find the time that i can do that.

So many great suggestions, thanks all.  I've bookmarked all I wasn't really aware of and will be combing through in the next few days.

Here's a rundown of what's been mentioned.

Music:

BBC 3, 4, 6

RTE Radio 1

Cashmere Radio (incredible, been listening to a ton of experimental tracks since this mention, easy to get in)

NTS

WZLX

WQXR & Q2

Intergalactic FM

College stations:

WVFS

WRIU

KALX

KFJC

Talk Radio:

NPR

LBC

Nobody's mentioned Resonance yet. London's premier weirdshit radio station.

Despite papa taking my yearly fee out of my account, it appears my edit button has been taken away

Anyway, a perfect example of Resonance FM's content would be today when they played the full 3hr recording of Frank Key of Hooting Yard fame reading Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno:

  Quote

 

 

Jubilate Agno is a long poem by Christopher Smart. It was written between 1758 and 1763, during which time Smart was incarcerated in Mr Potter’s private madhouse in Bethnal Green. He had been admitted there after a stay in St Luke’s Hospital for the Insane, where he had been sent due to a religious mania the chief symptom of which was a compulsion to pray in public.

Smart had long been thought one of the minor religious poets of the 18th century, best known for the Song To David. Jubilate Agno itself was unknown until an edition was published in 1939 under the title Rejoice In The Lamb : A Song From Bedlam. But it was the 1954 edition edited by W H Bond which gave us the poem in its accepted form, and which has led to Smart being hailed as a great original, and his poem much more than simply the ravings of a lunatic.Jubilate Agno is divided into four fragments, the second of which is subdivided again in the edition from which this reading is taken. It is, in the words of one writer, a vast hymn of praise, glorifying God and his creation. So, with that in mind, listen carefully to what may be the first complete reading of the entire poem on the radio

https://archive.org/details/JubilateAgno

Yes on my commute, in fact here are my car radio's preset stations:

1. 89.5 (classic - emergency for when I'm pissed in traffic)

2. 91.7 KOOP / KVRX - KOOP is kickass, only FM cooperative owned station I'm aware of / in the evening and night time it's KVRX, UT Austin's college station. The kind of station that will play kvlt black metal and LBGT talk radio on the same afternoon schedule.

3. 98.9 - KUTX - really decent public radio station, offshoot of KUT, similar to KEXP, KCRW, etc.

4. 90.5 KUT - local NPR station for my white liberal guilt injections

5. 93.7 - classic rock and a surpringly good yet aloof morning show called Dudley & Bob

6. 103.5 - classic Top 40 pop

Also tune into 103.1 which is a 100% solar powered station - they play a lot of decent americana, blues, old R&B and county, etc. 

  On 12/26/2017 at 6:44 PM, hello spiral said:

Despite papa taking my yearly fee out of my account, it appears my edit button has been taken away

 

Anyway, a perfect example of Resonance FM's content would be today when they played the full 3hr recording of Frank Key of Hooting Yard fame reading Christopher Smart's Jubilate Agno:

 

  Quote

Jubilate Agno is a long poem by Christopher Smart. It was written between 1758 and 1763, during which time Smart was incarcerated in Mr Potter’s private madhouse in Bethnal Green. He had been admitted there after a stay in St Luke’s Hospital for the Insane, where he had been sent due to a religious mania the chief symptom of which was a compulsion to pray in public.

 

Smart had long been thought one of the minor religious poets of the 18th century, best known for the Song To David. Jubilate Agno itself was unknown until an edition was published in 1939 under the title Rejoice In The Lamb : A Song From Bedlam. But it was the 1954 edition edited by W H Bond which gave us the poem in its accepted form, and which has led to Smart being hailed as a great original, and his poem much more than simply the ravings of a lunatic.Jubilate Agno is divided into four fragments, the second of which is subdivided again in the edition from which this reading is taken. It is, in the words of one writer, a vast hymn of praise, glorifying God and his creation. So, with that in mind, listen carefully to what may be the first complete reading of the entire poem on the radio

https://archive.org/details/JubilateAgno

This is what I’m talking about. Turned on, tuned in, dropping out.

yes

no.

i used to though. back in the early nineties. nowadays, no.

Not regularly but I never regret dusting off my short wave, especially when I'm far from home.

One time in Japan I picked up a frequency with DPRK propaganda in English.

KSUA 91.5 !!

https://www.ksuaradio.com/stream/

we just fixed things up from all the equipment blowing up so the playlist will be gettin better soon. Some fool went in and dumped a bunch of radiohead in it.