radio

I used to love listening to the radio.

Back when I was at uni I was driving around a 1999 Holden Astra with no bluetooth, no aux, not even a tape player to use one of those 3.5mm to cassette adapters. Now that I think about it, there must have been a CD reader but I had no CDs and never acquired any either. The only source of mental stimulation that I had (other than surviving the city streets) was good ol' FM radio.

The great thing about listening to radio in the car is that you're trapped.

Barring flipping through channels while dodging the other cars merging into you, the easiest action at any point is to just keep on listening. This automatically exposes you to a bunch of stuff you may have never chosen to listen to. Plenty of times in this period I would hear a song I bounced off of at first but then be trapped into listening to it as it made the rounds over the next week or two, and slowly gain an appreciation for a new song, artist, or entire genre I didn't have before.

If the Spotify algorithm had recommended me this song, I would've hit the thumbs down and never heard it or anything like it ever again.

Unfortunately now, in my life, there's not as much impetus to get trapped in a radio station. My home server has a curated library of music I already know ready to stream to any device, My phone magically connects to the car stereo and starts playing so I never even have to consider mashing the touchscreen to reach the radio.

Every now and then I've played around with internet radio stations to try and relive those days. They seem convenient enough that they could be the first thing I reach for when looking for some environmental music.

Unfortunately it never really sticks and I think it's largely due to the lack of lock-in. There are so many channels, all broadcasting any specific type of music you could look for. They're so ubiquitous that I just cycle through them, never settling in and being challenged.

So anyway, given all that, anyone have a favourite internet radio channel that you've stuck to for a long time? I'd love to check it out and get exposed to some new music.

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