Nick Danger

I could be wrong about the date. Clear Channel started their big consolidation after 1996. The point of the newspaper story was that a bunch of radio stations in town were really just a single box in a room.

Clear Channel Communications is now called iHeartMedia, and they use paid actors to call in to the talk radio programs. I suspect that they use actors to make song requests, too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clear_...ing_as_callers

kenbuzz

Led Zeppelin - over hyped, over played, I change the channel every time
Pink Floyd - over pretentious, over played, I change the channel every time
Springsteen - way over rated, every song sounds the same and Bruce sounds like he's either drunk or he's just now woken up. Have never understood his appeal, I'll turn the radio off rather than listen to him.

morriscroy

For that matter, over the decades I found college based radio stations to be almost just as bad as their commercial counterparts. Especially when the DJ was not into the music they were playing.

Back in the day, I use to listen to some college based radio stations which featured shows that specialized in less popular punk rock and heavy metal type stuff. In those days, it was easy to determine whether the DJ was actually into punk rock and/or heavy metal at all.

The dead giveaway was that the guys who were not really into punk rock and/or heavy metal type music, typically played a lot of first songs from side 1 or side 2 of numerous records. Even though these records were not very popular, one ended up hearing the same songs over and over again on such college radio shows.

It was a rare sigh of relief whenever I came across a college station which actually had a DJ who was very knowledgeable about the punk rock and/or heavy metal stuff they were playing, and whom actually played a wider variety of songs from various records (and even rare unreleased stuff occasionally).

Paff

Slightly off-topic, but I remember in the late 80s a local college station was playing the hell out of What You Have is Enough by Voice of the Beehive, and Shame on You by the Darling Buds. I dug those songs and became fans of both bands. I later found out that those weren't the "singles" from those records that the labels were trying to promote. Someone just went through the whole album and picked the song they liked best. Not sure if I would have paid as much attention to those acts had I only been exposed to the singles. I wish more shit like that would happen.

Eddie W

Ha, I remember that too. The college radio station in Atlanta played every song off of that Voice of the Beehive album so I wasn't even sure what the 'hit' was supposed to be. This would never be allowed to happen today. But luckily, it doesn't need to.

What I can't figure out is why people listen to classic rock radio. I like most of the bands mentioned in this thread, but I don't really want to here the same 2 songs by each of them over & over in between a bunch of commercials. At one time that was all we had. But in 2016? If I have a hankering for some classic rock my go to is 'classic rock deep dive' on Slacker.

Paff

For the record, it was I Say Nothing and Don't Call Me Baby.

Hokeyboy

I grew up listening to reggae, calypso, and island/Caribbean music of all sorts.

"Legend" makes me visibly angry. Yes it's the Marley Family Payroll, but this selection of his music has been co-opted by the likes of Alabama fratboys and conservative Soccer Moms, worn down to a nub, and driven into the ground through sheer ad-nauseum repetition.

But you're right; commercial radio is not about exposing people to artists and new music (or music that's new to them). It's about validating their limited expectations. Feh. Phooey... and FIDDLESTICKS.