KLRU
Doesn't Like BOB
RECEIVED Fri., Aug. 27, 2004
Dear Editor,
I turned my radio dial to 103.5 this week to find that my beloved oldies station had been, seemingly overnight, replaced by some modern invention called BOB FM ["Naked City," News, Aug. 27]. BOB FM claims to play music from every color and time with slogans like "BOB'll play anything, Bob's crazy!" trying to give me the impression that BOB is the kind of guy that's everyman's man and this must be, finally, an exception to the relentless homogenization of mainstream radio content. Diverse it is but different it is definitely not.
I have listened to oldies stations my whole life and I never envisioned a time or city that didn't have one. Oldies are some of the most timeless, universal artifacts of 20th-century America. They are the epitome of social conscience in music. Being brought up a middle-class white American without formal religion in the Eighties and Nineties, the classic folk songs of the Sixties made me moral by softly swirling it's corkscrew of love, innocence, and, oh yea, revolution into my memory early on in life. They are like a bible to me, and I don't believe that these songs have ever been timelier than right now. But now the owners of the airwaves act as if no one's listening and say people want something different. If the people demand this then why was the switch so sudden and secretive? For a station that gave myself and my parents years of classic and truly great music I would expect a going-away bash or, at the very least, an announcement. I think this deserves an investigation.
In the eyes of the corporate media it seems to be "the time of the season for anger, artificial change, and getting it on for just one night."
I turned my radio dial to 103.5 this week to find that my beloved oldies station had been, seemingly overnight, replaced by some modern invention called BOB FM ["Naked City," News, Aug. 27]. BOB FM claims to play music from every color and time with slogans like "BOB'll play anything, Bob's crazy!" trying to give me the impression that BOB is the kind of guy that's everyman's man and this must be, finally, an exception to the relentless homogenization of mainstream radio content. Diverse it is but different it is definitely not.
I have listened to oldies stations my whole life and I never envisioned a time or city that didn't have one. Oldies are some of the most timeless, universal artifacts of 20th-century America. They are the epitome of social conscience in music. Being brought up a middle-class white American without formal religion in the Eighties and Nineties, the classic folk songs of the Sixties made me moral by softly swirling it's corkscrew of love, innocence, and, oh yea, revolution into my memory early on in life. They are like a bible to me, and I don't believe that these songs have ever been timelier than right now. But now the owners of the airwaves act as if no one's listening and say people want something different. If the people demand this then why was the switch so sudden and secretive? For a station that gave myself and my parents years of classic and truly great music I would expect a going-away bash or, at the very least, an announcement. I think this deserves an investigation.
In the eyes of the corporate media it seems to be "the time of the season for anger, artificial change, and getting it on for just one night."
Sincerely terrified of BOB (and aesthetically terrorized),
Daniel Cioper
Daniel Cioper
