For maybe the last five years I haven’t listened to FM radio at all. And for several years prior to that I only listened sporadically, usually to morning drive time shows like “The Bob and Tom Show.” Monday night, however, I had a loaner from Lexus while my car was in for service, and without any CDs in hand or my iPod transmitter, I was forced to turn the radio on unless I wanted to listen to silence. Poking the scan button several times I finally landed on the “classic rock” station. I could tell it was the classic rock station because they were playing the same music they play five, or ten or even fifteen years ago.
Remember the scene from “Crocodile Dundee” where he’s in the Manhattan hotel and turns on the television only to see “I Love Lucy”, and he remarks, “that was on the last time I saw a TV too.” Well, FM radio has become the same wasteland in my opinion. Has there been no new rock and roll music since the Eagles, Yes, Melloncamp, and Journey? I like the old rock and roll songs, but over and over again for two decades? Three?
The other part of FM radio that is absolutely unbearable is the commercials. In the loaner car yesterday morning I discovered that KC does have a station that carries the “Bot and Tom Show” and I was listening to it on my drive in to work. Midway through my twenty minute commute they broke for commercials, and TEN minutes later when I arrived at the parking lot, they were still playing commercials. To add insult to injury, this morning I decided to listen to Bob and Tom again, only to find that I turned the radio on in time for the 6:20 am commercial break. It was the exact same ten minutes of commercials.
Thank Jobs and Co. for the iPod, with nearly 30GB of material to choose from I’ll never have to listen to FM radio again.