Wednesday, July 21, 2004

Reality Shift

There's always a few unsettling minutes when a radio station changes format.  You expect these things around April 1--in my city we've had an all-Zeppelin station and a hard rock one that went easy listening for a day--but otherwise it's an "What am I hearing" moment or two.  The only stations I listen to regularly are two college non-commercial ones neither of which has changed much in at least 20 years.  The commercial stations are ones I flip through when bored or needing the aural equivalent of comfort food and I rarely listen to any of these long enough for any changes to register.  So this station that just went from classic rock (radiobizspeak for major label white-boy rock from very late 60s to early 80s) to some kind of adult contemporary with a goofy name may have been that way for a couple of weeks before I noticed this afternoon.  When the last one went from oldies to all-talk it immediately left my presets; this one will probably stay around just long enough for me to reconsider setting #3 to the R&B station at the top of the dial that I usually never scan high enough to hear.  Or not:  This is why I have a CD player in the car.