My class' assignment this week is to take a look at the NPR website and make some comments. This comes after a panel/class discussion on the merits of public radio. Many of my classmates did not know much about public radio, didn't care for it, or were simply uninterested in the topic. I, however, have been listening to public radio, predominantly NPR, for my whole life. My mother is an avid fan listening at all possible times, and I have grown to see how it has affected my views on the world outside, and found a huge respect for the style of programming. So while surfing the NPR website for some is difficult or boring, for me it is almost a daily occurrence, and a place from which I get a lot of news.
I also really appreciate the music and sports reporting that NPR does. One of my favorite programs of any media is called "It's Only a Game", with Bill Littlefield. And while this program can't provide the video highlights that I eventually become addicted to while watching SportsCenter on ESPN, this show is a fantastically compelling program bringing great perspective to sports. Like NPR's news and music, "It's Only a Game" looks at its stories differently. But on to other things.
As a play on the title of one of NPR's most prominent news shows All Things Considered, Bob Boilen and others from "All Things" created a music show called All Songs Considered for alternative music. This is one of the best shows on radio today, in my opinion, even though I am not in love with all of the music that they showcase. I just love the way that they strive to showcase new music, and music that you just don't hear in mainstream media. Although it's a weekly show, there's probably enough content to create a daily program, but there's so much online that "All Songs" makes up for that fact. They provide discussions/forums, live concerts, in studio performances, interviews, guest DJ's, and LOTS of online blogging that sometimes doesn't make it to the audio program. And they don't narrow their sights to any one genre (no matter how much you claim "Indie" as a"genre"). Last summer, I went to the music festival Bonnaroo and "All Songs" sent several representatives to report on the exhausting festival. In addition to recording many of the shows in full, they created an hour long podcast reviewing their personal experiences at the shows throughout the weekend. As an attendee of Bonnaroo, I found this report to be awesome once I found it a few weeks later. And even though Bob Boilen and company were at very different shows than me, the reporting on the podcast is awesome. For something more recent, I'd like to take a look at last show of "All Songs" which focused on the 1990s music scene.
Here's the link for the full story, with an audio link on the page. The 1990s were, quite simply, my childhood. I love 95% of the music that came out of that decade. As a longtime amateur musician (very amateur), I think that I recognize boring or simple music, but even when 90s music falls into that zone I can barely turn away. Grunge, hip hop, rockpop, even some of the earliest "Nu-Metal" was just all so catchy but fantastic. "All Songs'" large panel discussion looked at a great variety of music from the decade, criticizing some of the more pop records, but clearly in a similar love with the dirt that emerged from the 90s. They pointed out that 90s popular music seems to stand up to time, while music from the 80s does not seem as relevant today. Even the one hit wonders that dominated poprock still sound great, no matter what the rest of their catalog is like. If you existed in the 1990s, check out the show at the link above, a very fun and laid back look at how awesome that decade really was.
Whew, that's probably enough, you're definitely sick of my ramblings by now. Until next time, when I will probably return to the evil world of consumerist commercial radio programming.
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