2026-05-13 Re: (Internet) radio

Bungo no longer listens to radio, because like TV, convenience killed it.

That's understandable. Like Bungo used to listen to the radio in his car because that was all he had, I used to listen to the radio because I only had so many (read: few) MP3 files to put on my portable music player. When Spotify came around, it took ages to jump on the train, and so for a long while radio was still my main source of new and varied music. I too discovered new-to-me music and started following radio programmes, recognising hosts and memorising schedules. As FM radio was shut down and I spent too much time in front of a computer anyway, I switched to listening to the same stations as internet radio.

Internet radio was the first convenience. Not only could I play any station I wanted, but I could look up and play individual programmes on-demand, picking the ones I liked the best. But I still could not pick individual songs, albums or artists – the programmes would play what they played, according to the theme and whatever the host felt like. So I still listened to new-to-me music, within a somewhat pickier selection of genres.

Eventually, I did end up getting a paid Spotify account. The ads (both on Spotify and on commercial radio) were annoying, and Spotify was awfully convenient. So just like people using streaming services don't tend to watch linear TV anymore, I stopped listening to the radio. I could just put on a playlist, or use their ‘artist radio’ function if I felt like some variation. Ironically, with a catalogue of the world's music at my disposal, my listening got a lot narrower – almost as if I was just playing my old CDs and MP3s anyway, with a hint of ‘radio’ based on them. Kind of pointless, really. (I've recently switched from Spotify to Deezer, but that only really changed the provider, not my usage pattern.)

I agree there are benefits to using radio rather than on-demand streaming as an algorithm, because it exposes you to outside impulses (and occasionally even the news). I may have to revisit proper (internet) radio again. Our state broadcaster, NRK, is decent and used to have some good programmes I listened to back in the day. Hopefully some are still running. These days I only follow a very few of them as podcasts (another convenience to kill the linear age).

That said, there is one thing I still use internet radio for: background music for concentrated work. I've found that I rather like to listen to synthwave, chillsynth and the likes when I sit at a computer or am otherwise trying to think and to block the rest of the world out. So rather than putting on the same old playlist every time, I tune in to a nice little radio station that does all the curating and shuffling for me. No login, no settings, no personalisation. Just press play.

The radio station I use is Chillsynth.fm, but they have a bunch of related sister stations like Nightride.fm, Datawave.fm and so on. They're listed under Stations on the web interface.

You can check them out on the web if you like.

For other stations, I think my main recommendation is honestly to just decide on one station (or network) and stick with it. If you choose one, you can use their own player to ‘trap yourself’ somewhat, with less to cycle through. Or set up a player to just always play the same station. I personally think public broadcasters are great, since they don't have any ads and can generally care more about quality than revenue generation. I get that we all live in very different countries and YMMV, but I like what little I've heard from NPR in the USA and SR in Sweden, and I would probably be listening to the BBC if I were a Brit. Surely at least one of their channels would be interesting to me. If I do start listening more to ‘linear’ radio, I know I'll be tuning to NRK first, at least. They even have dedicated channels for jazz and classical music.

Or maybe get a physical radio again. Why did we stop having radio receivers in phones? I want DAB radio on my phone.

Soundtrack: ‘Radio Ga Ga’ by Queen (on Deezer)

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