I DON’T KNOW JACK ABOUT MUSIC…OR DO I?
One of the nice things about traveling for business is that I sometimes find some great music stations on the radio. It’s rare, but when I find one, I get pretty jazzed. Well, my friends (as John McCain is so fond of saying), this week, I have found one, though it has a little twist, as you’ll see. First of all there is a Denver Station that calls itself Jack FM, and I gotta admit, they play one hell of a variety of songs. Not every song is great, or even a song I like. But unlike most stations, I can listen to 3 or 4 songs I really enjoy for everyone I don’t. Normal stations are lucky to have the reverse ratio.
Now for the controversy. I guess that Jack FM is a new type of format, or so says Wikipedia (who we all know is NEVER wrong!). The playlist creation is centralized, and market research driven. Their catalog of songs are, I guess, twice as large as other stations, and they are no where near as specific to one genre of music. Honestly, I find none of those things disturbing, and in fact, it’s a nice change. The stations (and there are several across the US, Canada, and now even in the UK), have no local programming. No DJ. No local voice to add that local touch. I guess that upsets people. To be honest, though, there are very few DJ’s I honestly care to listen to. The last one passed away a few years back (I hope your jamming your ass off up there, John Peel!). It’s all about the music…the other stuff is just fluff.
That brings me to today’s list. All the songs on the list are from a 2 hour period. Of course, I choose the ones I liked the most, and left off the clunkers like Neil Diamond and Kool and the Gang (apologies to those that like those two artists…I have nothing again em. Hell, I even dig the hell out of Neil once in a while.). But the stuff listed here is pretty typical of the range of styles, both in genre and in decades, that they play around the clock. Like I said, it works for me, and makes that drive to and from work a little more bearable. Enjoy!
- The Clash – Train In Vain (Stand By Me)
- Sheryl Crow – All I Wanna Do
- Tone Loc – Funky Cold Medina
- Blue Oyster Cult – (Don’t Fear) The Reaper
- War – Low Rider
- Beck – Girl
- Pink – Who Knew
- The real McCoy – Another Night
- The Police – Wraped Around Your Finger
- Def Leppard – Foolin’
September 28th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
We have a JackFM here also, but its selection is tiring and repetitious…better to create your own with ITunes, Pandora, LastFM or the many other “Jack-a-likes.”
September 28th, 2008 at 12:35 pm
@Larry:
I suppose that if I had to spend any amount of time listening to it, yeah, I would see where it would be tiring. After all, one of the reasons that I started this blog was to play stuff that you can’t hear on the radio, and outside of a few used record stores, you simply cannot buy in a store anymore. While it is nice to hear a lot of the stuff Jack has played this past week, they are by no means as cool as my iPod. Thanks for the insight to a format I hadn’t really even known existed before.
September 29th, 2008 at 2:31 am
Sounds great looking forward to it ! this is really nice mate! good job! Thanx!
September 29th, 2008 at 12:30 pm
There are variation on Jack FM, we have Mike FM, Wichita has Bob FM, they all sound alike. At least they play a variety of music, but they play the crap outta Funky Cold Medina. I like that you never really even know what genre you are going to get, New Wave, Hard Rock, Disco, even County sometimes. But, I do kinda miss a local touch. And how many poor local DJs are going to be put out of work by this idea?
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