I hadn’t really considered the burgeoning Russian-language hip-hop catalog, or the world of Japanese J-Pop, much less a station called “Challenging Sushi,” that positions itself as “anti-J-Pop, alternative Japanese pop, rock, punk, reggae, etc.” I mean … that “etc.” has to be pretty out there, no? And these aren’t shows on a station, they’re little stations devoted to specialty genres.
Some are live, but most are canned and rotate content. Some have vast collections, some are limited. The majority are free to anyone, so you can check them out right now. Premium stations at live365.com require a general subscription fee. I hate to pay for any Web content, but I am sensitive to copyright and intellectual property rights. So I lurked as a free subscriber on live365.com for months, before buying in at their extremely modest rates. I have no regrets, and the subscription renders most stations commercial- free. Now I get up in the morning and reach for the PC with more anticipation than I ever did for the FM dial or my own CDs. They’ve been around since 1999, and the service has been consistently good—plus they’re on the up-and-up with royalties for the artists.
Take a listen. You can run their streams through your copy of Real, Quicktime, Windows Media Player, or a little downloadable player they supply. The sound quality varies, but most stations sound as good as listening to FM radio.
Believe me, people’s ears prick up when you’re having a dinner party and you put on an eclectic mix of “thoughtful” French progressive dance music or someone’s painstakingly gathered and totally right-on collection of “psychedelic garage mod pop underground.” My personal collection of PGMPU is quite lacking, how’s yours?
These services give me that sense of curiosity and serendipity that corporate radio, cable, and satellite outlets can’t. They’re like Euro stations that go from Guy Lombardo to Eno to Radiohead to Heino singing a 1970s German pop hit.
Funny, I guess it was the hunger for the old-school eclectic FM that got me turned on to music to begin with. And there it was on my PC desktop all the while. But for all the eclecticism, you know what I “tune into” most on live365.com? The schmaltzy super-hits of the 1970s station named Sunset Blvd Mellow. It’s like laying around the pool, puffing on, er … big ideas … and listing to LA’s KNX FM in ’74. No shame here. The world needs more Dan Fogelberg (RIP) and if I’ve mellowed to the point where I’m trippin’
