Songs & Artists NEVER HEARD on the RADIO?

Sounds like Reubent lives in a great area for better FM. It is great to live in an area with a good selection on NPR/public stations...esp. small college..and esp. several towns to draw from.

I live in Madison, Wi....and as hip as this town "thinks" it is, it just isn't. Public radio here..that is seen as "cool" is still Prairie Home Companion....kind of the NPR version of "Hew Haw" for college towns.

Even when I visit Cedar Rapids, Iowa..they have a Community College station that has a better sense of music.

Part of the problem in Madison...is that other towns are just a bit too far away...for decent FM reception....I guess I could put up a house on the biggest hill in town...with a 200 ft. mast...with stacked Finco FM-4 feed into an Marnatz 10B..that I don't mind re-tuning every 30 seconds..point the antenna towards Chicago after midnight..and.....naw!

Although quite popular here (NE OH), I don't recall ever hearing anything by The Tragically Hip. Different story, I assume, north of the border, eh?

Sounds like the pattern is the same all over the country, I thought it was just the "wasteland" of FM here in the Seattle Tacoma area. I have long given up listening to FM for anything decent, with the wonderful exception of KPLU-Tacoma, which is listener-supported Jazz, Blues and NPR news. My idea of torture is being forced to listen to the same, tired, played-to-death songs that are spun over and over and over and over on the "big" Seattle stations. It's bad, folks, real bad. The upside of this is that I've started reading various music magazines for info on new and exciting artists, and have discovered a whole world of cool music that "corpradio" wouldn't touch with a stick. Stereolab, Beck, even Radiohead? Coldplay, David Byrne, or Moby? Not likely in this lifetime. Good luck finding anything interesting when the advertisers are involved...

Have to admit, when first coming to New York I expected there to be choices for great radio stations. To my dismay, there is absolutely nothing that I consider worth while, save for NPR and one jazz station. The remainder, as Mr. Porter so aptly and reliably put it, is the "fast food" variety, at best. Prior to New York, I was in Charlottesville, VA, where there was both a great college station and a phenominal "listened suported" station that I miss dearly and still sometimes contribute to. These days, the only way I get to hear new or interesting music (save from seeking it out live) is on various internet stations. The favorite for fairly cutting edge "alternative," underground, largely unsigned artists is 3WK.com -- which offers seperate channels for both "New" and "Classic" underground music. Through them I've discovered a whole host of things I wouldn't have found any other way: Crooked Fingers, Tykwar, Callendar Girl, Tawwater, Rainer Maria, Slumber Party, Neutral Milk Hotel, Chicks on Speed, Sigur Ros -- the list goes on. I am frustrated that I am condemned to listening on my decidedly lo-fi computer system (though I try to buy the stuff I like) but my tuner now lives in a box in the closet.... The death of radio is not somehting to fear in the future, I suspect it has already happened.