Playing music at their suggestion is not a viable option. In the end, the reason that things are done this way is that I am the Music Director. Selecting music for its emotional content has some very definite effects. On weekday afternoons it is perhaps easiest, since the music we play then is relatively energetic. At other times, though, emotions can run the gamut.
Life is joy and pain and boredom and panic and uncertainty and pride and love and death.
Music should be all of these things, too. Therefore, if all of the music on WREK is pretty, and there is no downright ugly music being played, then I am not doing my job. Commercial radio delivers music to you in bite-sized, easily digestible chunks. WREK gives you things that are too damn big to fit in your mouth. One has to hack around on them for a while before one can break them down, or maybe one never can.