From: mbutler@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (M. COOPER / B. McQUAID)
Newsgroups: alt.music.alternative,rec.radio.noncomm
Subject: Re: Alternative radio stations
Date: 7 Apr 92 03:11:34 GMT
Followup-To: alt.music.alternative
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <1992Apr1.171204.14614@Csli.Stanford.EDU> glad@Csli.Stanford.EDU (Clayton Glad) writes:
-" mbutler@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (M. COOPER / B. McQUAID) writes:
-" 
-" >	I don't need history to know whether a station is free-
-" >form.
-" 
-" You're free to ignore history and base your views on your few years of
-" listening to a small handful of radio stations, but in that case you
-" ought to qualify the claims you've been making.  Of course, claiming
-" that of the two or three non-commercial stations you've listened two
-" over the past 5 or 6 years none have evidenced the kind of variety,
-" freedom and creativity that Eli and I have been describing isn't a
-" very strong or interesting claim.  It's more a statement of your
-" cloistered environment and refusal to learn anything about the (recent)
-" history of broadcasting than about the state of non-commercial radio.
-" 
	Why do I need broadcasting experience to suggest that
alternative/underground radio stick to airing more obscure music?
Are you saying that the process which worked historically should
work today, regardless of the growth of pop music?  But you would
then be ignoring history, as you claim I am.
	I think your "experience" line is useless because the pro-
liferation of pop has outlived it.  Here you come with the inevi-
table argument that you've been "in the business" longer than I;
suddenly Eli jumps onto your bandwagon and your favorite word is
"blather."  I never claimed that I've listened to truly alternative
radio; I claimed that I'm tired of the lack of it with relation to
pop, and I blame pop's intrusion into what some people like to think
is an underground radio station.  Pop has taken in what some people
still believe it shouldn't, what some people believe is truly al-
ternative musically.  This is how pop defies your "experience."
I'd like to hear something different and I've heard radio which
comes close to my idea of alternative.  Such radio isn't subject
to some steady defintion as you imply by raising the "experience"
issue because that which is alternative is defined by that which is
common, meaning that the definition will ever alter, and that
"experience" is irrelevant.

-" I wrote:
-" 
-" >-" There were at one time radio programmers who could and did play 
-" >-"many genres of music in a single show, as well as reaching beyond 
-" >-"the now-inescapable format  music and patter.  Many of these DJs had
-" >-"shows on - *gasp* - commercial stations.
-" 
-" Milo:
-" 
-" >	That was then.  This is now.  With the growth of pop music,
-" >your type of argument is becoming more and more unreasonable.  OB-
-" >VIOUSLY there was less pop aired back then; the dominance of format
-" >radio couldn't have happened overnight!
-" 
-" Who said anything about "less pop aired back then?"  Your insistence that
-" you need no historical background to understand this situation doesn't
-" square well with your invented "facts".
-" 
	I was referring to your mentioning a diverse DJ on a
COMMERCIAL station.  What's the significance here?  It was still
a commercial station, intermittent diversity or not.  That's not
enough.

-" You claimed last week that all stations operated within genre-formats, a
-" claim which is massively falsified by the free-form stations of the recent
-" past as well as the more enlightened programmers of the present.  I'd be
-" happy to provide examples if you wish.
-" 
	Well, I didn't use the word "genre," but here I must bow to
your remark that absolutely formatless stations truly exist in the
present, simply because I haven't heard any.  Please _do_ provide
examples, so that I may hear them (if possible) and judge for
myself.

-" That such programming is largely a thing of the past is *exactly* the
-" point I've been making.  Only I attribute the disappearance of such
-" programming more to the homogenization of "alternative" radio than to
-" what you seem to believe is pop's ascendency to a monolithic genre.  
-" I'd love to debate this with you but I don't see how that would be 
-" possible without considerable reference to this histories of music and
-" radio.
-" 
	So, do you believe that pop and falsely-labelled "alterna-
tive" music are two separate objects?

-" [re. block programming]
-" 
-" >	And they play EVERYTHING all of the time?  Block stations
-" >do NOT play everything ALL of the time!  Block programming is ir-
-" >relevant because such programming is just partitioned format!  WAKE
-" >UP!
-" 
-" And so at what level do you recognize a station's format?  Show?  Song?
-" Riff?  Chord?
-" 
	Yes. Yes. Yes.  Yes.

-" [my description of how a station might provide an alternative without
-"  having to scan CHR and CMJ charts all the time]
-" 
-" >-" That sounds formatless, though, doesn't it?
-" >-" 
-" >	No.  But I haven't a problem with format, I have a prob-
-" >lem with Pop's predominance.  So whether a station has a format
-" >or not is irrelevant.
-" 
-" Wait.  I thought it was *impossible* for a station not to have a format.
-" 
	It isn't, according to you, and I'm tentatively taking your
word for it.

-" >You all apparently have some sole notion as to the thought processes of 
-" >those of us who are for antiestablismentarian radio.  
-" 
-" Absolutely the *only* claim you've made about this form of radio is that
-" it does not and should not play any music which is "popular".  You've
-" yet to name even a single station which fits your idea of 
-" antiestablishmentarianism or to provide a cogent reason why paying more
-" attention to how much a record sells should make for better radio than
-" attending to the *music*.
-" 
-" -- Clay

	I've heard nothing that adheres to my idea of an alternative
radio station.  Knowing what I submit, why do you need an example?
Must I, like you, limit myself to referentialism?

					- MILO D. COOPER  '92
					-Negro Extraordinaire
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