I don't feel this is true. Think of the best DJs as curators, yes a lot will be the same, but DJs will help you discover new music and discuss that music too.

The legendary John Peel of BBC Radio 1 being a good example.

I still listen to BBC Radio 6 these days for the same reason, good way to find new music and to be introduced to genres you may never be exposed to by an echo-chamber algo in your favourite music app.

What we seem to be missing now is things like .. a lot of the artists (70s-80s "dad rock") I listen to have "the BBC sessions" LPs - or even better, The Peel Sessions. I've lost track of the number of artists that made it because Peel found them and gave them that spotlight.

Being able to play whatever you want, whenever you want, is indeed fantastic. I'm not sure I'd want to go backwards from here either. But we've solved availability, I don't think we've solve discovery - I don't think algorithmically generated playlists replace John Peel. They seem to solve "everyone else has found X and you haven't", they don't solve "X haven't been found". So we end up back in this trap of "finding" the music the labels have decided to promote, rather than the artists that deserve to be found.

As a poor kid in the 80's, I couldn't really afford music. Most of what I had was recorded on cassette tapes from OTA broadcasts from a nearby college station. They would even, late at night, play full albums from time to time and cue you on when to press record, flip the tape, etc. The quality was shit, of course, but I didn't have much better to compare it to.

I did the same, but on reel-to-reel. Finally got a boom box, then switched to cassette. I remember the dual deck boom boxes, threw the recording industry into a tizzy.

My youth did not include high quality on demand free or minimially expensive music and/or music discovery services that were not a FM radio (or MTV).

Independent radio stations have DJs and a culture around them that foster new music and support independent musicians.

To pick an example, Hot97 was _the_ voice of the bronx (literally, in the case of angie martinez) and the east coast hip hop scene from more or less the beginning. DJs would meet or be introduced to or know of local artists, get their demo tapes on the air, and launched major careers as a result.

And you think that major careers cannot be launched via Spotify or YouTube or any of a dozen other options?

This just feels like one of those “things are different” situations where nothing is better or worse, but simply not the way it was.

Yeah but now people have thousands and thousands of DJ’s to choose from.

and the vast majority of them suck!

that probably makes me a grouchy old man, but the fragmentation and personalization of music does actually lead to a dilution.

I miss the curation of music they provided (though college stations partially fill that gap) and local news (which has been systematically and intentionally dismantled by policy changes made in DC).

Lack of local news has done tons of damage to the US, since it greatly reduces the accountability of politicians, and awareness of local issues.

> Just that was the only way to access music back then?

It wasn't the only way to access music back then. You had recorded media and live music.

I'm not actually from around that time but I've been playing around with a Walkman recently. For me it started as retro foppery but I noticed a few distinct differences:

- You're not in total control of the radio. You can pick the station you like but you can't reorder the playlist, select specific tracks, rewind, or repeat anything. This evokes a feeling of surrender, of "letting go." While listening to the radio, you're freed from the responsibility of curating your own collection and selecting the best music for the occasion.

- Much more than the targeted algorithms of services like Spotify, you're at the mercy of the DJ. Compared to the algorithm, there's absolutely more of a connection there. If you enjoy what's on the radio, then you're sharing that enjoyment with the DJ. It's a direct analog precursor to the "space of flows," a pleasurable social bond formed between two people who don't share physical space or even traditional spoken word conversation.

- You're off the grid. The radio doesn't track your favorite artists or your location. It doesn't correlate your listening habits with your recent purchases. This makes the experience feel more elective. When you can decide to turn something on, that means you can decide to turn it off. It's different from our always-on, always-connected everyday experience.

- The endless sea of digital media sometimes induces analysis paralysis. The bigger your MP3 library, the more mental resources you must dedicate to mentally searching for the music most appropriate to your mood and surroundings. Narrowing your selection to a handful of radio stations, each one playing only a single song at a time until it ends, frees up a lot of mental resources.

- Paradoxically, being exposed to music you don't like actually refines your taste. Further, suffering through a bad song on the radio heightens your anticipation of the next song, and if you end up enjoying the next song it's a huge, satisfying relief. Compared to Spotify where you can skip past an unsatisfying song, or be reasonably sure the next song will be more to your liking based on whether you just skipped, the emotional experience is more varied and granular. It's more exciting. It's also closer to reality: contrary to what the countless ads and offers claim, you can't always get what you want and you won't always be satisfied. Annoyance, boredom, dissatisfaction, and disappointment are going to find you eventually. There's nothing better for practicing acceptance of life's unpleasant, unskippable moments than suffering through a terrible song on the radio.

> There's nothing better for practicing acceptance of life's unpleasant, unskippable moments than suffering through a terrible song on the radio.

Do we really need to practice for that? I would say that you are right that we can’t always have what we want, but at least in streaming music we are quite close to that (depending on tastes, some genres are quite underrepresented).

Personally I prefer to keep small isles of life without unpleasantness.

I used to listen to the (Dutch) radio when I did my homework in the '80s. There was much less choice than there is nowadays which meant that a fair portion of my class mates also ended up listening to whatever program I'd listen to, leading to a shared common ground. The program I mostly listened to ("De Avondspits" (The evenening rush hour) hosted by a fairly well-spoken DJ by the name of "Frits Spits") was tailored to school-age youth and played a mixture of styles larded with spoken word (people could send lymericks [1] which related a song for the chance of winning some trinket) and call-in competitions. Sitting up there in my room doing my homework the radio, knowing that my classmates and others were also sitting somewhere doing their homework while listening to the same program gave a sense of being part of... something. Nothing big and earth-shattering, just a bit more than the drudge of sitting there doing homework. This being the Netherlands there were no commercials, other than a short block around the hour.

Of course I could also listen to my own music back then: play a mix tape or some records. I could get records at the library which I subsequently taped. While not comparable to the width and breadth of choice offered by official and 'pirate' online options now it still was a form of choice. It is just that, sometimes, it is nice not to have to make a choice other than switching the thing on, turning down the volume when some song comes by which doesn't pass the muster.

There were more programs like this: "Het Betonuur" ("beton" means concrete, they played hard rock etc.), "Stampij" (also hard rock), "De LP show" (a prosaic name which means "The LP (record) show", playing tracks of newer prog/symphonic rock/experimental artists), "Superclean Dream Machine" (even weirder music hosted by an ever weirder person), etc. I often had my tape recorder at the ready to record anything worthwhile.

I can now play the music which I heard back then at a moment's notice by using any of the online venues available to me. In many ways this is an improvement, but...

Imagine walking over a beach and finding a diamond in the sand. That would be an amazing discovery, something you'd remember for the rest of your life. Remember when you found that diamond back then? Remember what you were doing, with whom you were doing it, what came after?

Now imagine walking over a beach where there is no sand any more, only diamonds. They're everywhere, littering the streets, hiding under the thrash can. You pick one up and look at it: a diamond, big deal. You drop it and walk on...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_(poetry)

I'm from the US. As this thread implies, our radio has almost been entirely lost to automation. I've switched entirely to listening to the Dutch NPO stations since they still have live DJs, bands live in the studio, interviews, and concerts.

I've even learned enough Dutch to understand the NOS news segments at the top of the hour.

For my sake, don't also lose your own radio. The separation of station from broadcasters is quirky and unique, but likely the reason it's still actually good.