This Beats1 station has me gripped. Have you listened to it on Apple Music yet? It’s really good.
Here is the surprise.
Unlike the internet there are REAL LIVE enthusiastic charismatic people talking into the mic with infectious human energy.
They are picking weird shit. No app has ever gone from Eno to some Mancunian punks to Skepta to whatever. It’s fresh. The algos all suck compared to this – they are all Greatest Hits and this is the Party DJ dropping exactly the old/new/nothing/legend/megahit.
And it is ONE thing that lots of people are listening too. I emailed a friend – he heard the Eno song. I tweeted about a Tribe song and got a fave. People are on there. It’s like being at a show together in a way that perhaps only the News provides a common culture that marks the minutes of the day in real time.
So they are better than robots. Human and curated. Great.
But they are so much better than RADIO (terrestrial) too. Maybe a million years ago radio felt like this. But not now.
No commercials.
No heavy rotation crappy payola songs.
Genre busting – one station not “NYCs top rock station with no rap!” or whatever.
Old and new – again not payola.
The best DJs, not just some turkeys.
Huge audience so folks are pumped to be on air.
No long promotional “come see me spin at some loser bar on Saturday” segments.
No traffic or news or talk radio format stuff designed to block drive time commuters from switching to NPR. It is music.
Ratings don’t matter. Goodness matters.