Saturday, September 18, 2021

Indianapolis Radio Still Sucks

I know complaining of Indianapolis radio goes back 40 years. It probably started when old WNAP did its last raft race. Starting back then I always made sure my cars had a tape player until the tape player became a CD player. In the late 90s there was a low power station out of Brownsburg that was always surprised with its variety.  WTTS leaned heavily toward the college radio format and that gave some relief to the commercial AOR sounds of WFBQ. No Indiana station had anything on Chicago's WXRT.  Coming back from then years in prison, I found out WFBQ was now an iHeart station. Coming from where I could heard WXPN and WPRB and Indianapolis radio sounds like nothing more than a backdrop for advertising.

This list has all the sounds I heard in New Jersey that I have yet to hear in Indianapolis:

  1. Courtney Barnett
  2. Florence + the Machine
  3. Gary Clark, Jr.
  4. Fiona Apple
  5. Rival Suns
  6. Dorothy
  7. Shemekia Copeland
  8. Lucinda Williams
  9. Lana Del Ray
  10. Sharon Van Etten
  11. Mondo Cosmo
  12. Leonard Cohen
  13. Willie Nile
  14. Josh Ritter
  15. Greta Van Fleet
  16. The Record Company
  17. The Buzzcocks
  18. Mattiel
  19. Janelle Monae
  20. Sturgill Simpson
  21. Drive-By Truckers
  22. Brittany Howard
  23. Valerie June
  24. Margo Price
Do you think you're a rock and roll rebel just because you're listening to Q95 or WJJK or Alt 103.3?

You're confusing life with a narcotized nostalgia.

You've let the business co-opt the freedom of choice; you're brainwashed.

But you like it, you say - just as the crackhead likes their crack pipe.

You've castrated the life in you; you've let your imagination be limited by the person trying to sell you a new car you don't really need.

Are we getting the culture we need or being sold what someone thinks we deserve? Are we really so small a people? 

The White Man in the Hammersmith Palais laughs at you for turning rebellion into money.

It's not rock and roll however high you turn the volume, if you're willing to close your mind. That's why Little Richard still rocks out.

Why does Indiana think it doesn't serve any better?


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