A reader named Karim wanted to share some thoughts about Toronto radio. I'm cool with that.
Hello Toronto Mike,
After reading many of your radio blogs which I enjoy to read and after reading the heartfelt letters from Cool Steve and Stephen from Kitchener, I thought, hey, I would like to put (publish) my radio feelings as well.
In an ideal world, radio would be a discovery tool, a place to enjoy your favourites (what you already know) in moderation, in addition to the discovery of "the next-big things," or "undiscovered" talent. An ideal classic rock station would play in moderation, the popular recognized works of art by classic stars (i.e. Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb, The Guess Who's American Woman, Lynyrd Skynyrd's Sweet Home Alabama) in moderation, but also to play the classic rock "masterpieces," that never saw the light of day, as well as "legends," that never really came through. In other words, to me anyway, the ideal station would serve people who LOVE music. I may sound overly passionate here, but really I 'm just a guy with many ideas in many areas and forms, and a guy who wants to get them noticed. I felt this would be a great blog to voice my radio feelings.You know, I think radio stations don't really cater to people who LOVE music, to be honest I think they cater to people who real!
ly don't care about music or who know little about it to begin with, these are the people who would find most stations most entertaining. Several years back, when I was a youngster living in Hamilton, Ontario, I thought I would check out the local rock station, Y108, since my parents and family, well they were into jazz. So, I tuned them in and well, I loved it. The first song I heard on Y108 was "Comfortably Numb," by Pink Floyd, and it sounded great. Everything was fresh and new, and I began to love music. Over time however, and rather quickly I might add, it lost appeal. Now, Y108 was kind of an interesting station, in the sense that they liked to change up their mix throughout the year, no really huge changes, just that they would add and subtract artists and songs enough to keep me interested till present. They had periods where the 90's was the big focus, a period where classic rock became the focus even a period where hair metal was the main focus. So, it was interesting enough. However, even on a station like Y108, it gets to the point where you've heard every song too many times, and to avoid such overplay I find myself listening less and less, this can simply be described as perhaps a loss of passion, yes I still do crank the radio up when I hear a song that I dig or something I haven't heard in a while, but then it goes off again, when its "Comfortably Numb," or "Hells Bells," for the 1000000000000th time. So, you may or may not see my point, but to put it simply, radio needs the Real "Spirit" back.
Don't tell anyone, but Cool Steve and Stephen from Kitchener were actually the same person.
