When in Philadelphia I am switching stations between WOGL (the Philly oldies sister station of WCBS NY) and WXPN, the public-supported college station. The only reason I found XPN is because the iPod radio broadcaster I use is in the 88.1 to 88.7 frequency range.

Sometimes when I listen to WOGL, the repetitiveness of the playlists gets to me. (It would probably be the same with WCBS, but I only hear them during the weekends nowadays, and I often prefer to go to New Jersey 101.5, which switches formats from weekday news to weekend oldies.) What was I saying?

Right, repetitiveness in oldies stations. I swear I heard the same song four times over the course of a week, and I only listen to the radio in the car. Could have been the Netscape stream at work. Oh well. But come on, with a format spanning—and I presume a catalog covering—fifties, sixties, seventies—three decades, why is the same song playing over and over again? It’s almost as bad as those awful Top Forty formats. Blech.

So I was using the iPod plus a mini broadcaster, which requires fumbling when a signal gets stronger while driving in the desolate moors between Philadelphia and Edison. And this song leaked through, and it turned out to be mumblety-peg Edwards and the station happened to be WXPN 88.7.

I’ve been looking for this Kathleen Edwards song for some two weeks’ time, but it’s been swamped out of Google by another Edwards, and I had forgotten her first name. “Six O’Clock News” was the song that caught my attention, but devising a Google search for it took some work, and only got me the Failer review earlier today, which was why I was so frustrated last week. I swear this is the same search I did last week, so Google must have updated its caches recently. I also tried a number of Edwards term combinations. So I guess I’ll try the CD World approach and take a listen, maybe pick it up.

Joe Jackson is coming out with an album, Volume 4, in March; WXPN aired three songs, soliciting opinions from the audience as to which they would like Joe Jackson to put out in heavy rotation.

Kelly Willis, “If I left you,” yet another country song that would annoy RonE.

I was shocked to hear that Jeffrey Gaines has changed into a Lenny Kravitz clone. Not that I don’t like Lenny Kravitz’s music, but Gaines had such a unique storytelling voice and music, and it’s a shame that when I first heard his latest, I thought Kravitz. But this is probably a premature judgment based on one song. Neh?

Aztec Camera, “Jump” cover: might as well.
9:09:19 PM  #  comment []

Whoops.
12:05:08 AM  #  comment []

The Animated Atlas is an interesting idea, but I would have liked to see little dots representing the densities of populations, perhaps how they ebbed and flowed. That would have been cool.

Or even a broader brush, with world history, along the lines of Colin McEveady (?) (!!!). That would have been cool.

Oh, wait? What was I saying? I could get off my lazy ass and do it myself. (Hah!)
12:03:43 AM  #  comment []