So for the second time in the past month or so, WMFS has spent an elongated holiday weekend "on shuffle." And for the second time, it's been great. I've heard songs that I forgot had existed; hell, I've heard bands that I'd forgotten had existed. K's Choice? Wow, they faded away in '97 or something. Lots of Metallica, Pantera, a little while ago, they even played Prince's Purple Rain. It's been such an amazing, eclectic clusterf.. that I almost dreamed The Pig was back.
So I have to ask a question of people who are in the business. Why put a station "on shuffle" as a stunt? The very idea that it's a stunt seems to give away the fact that the other 50 weeks of the year, the station is entirely over-programmed to the same 20 tracks, and isn't playing a variety of what the listeners want. Why is "a big playlist" a stunt? Why is it that I can only hear these songs on the radio when a station decides to go buck wild and play something that isn't in the current charts?
Back when WMFS first went on the air, this weekend is what they sounded like all the time. I've mostly given up on them (even to the point of dropping them from my car's presets) because they're always playing the same 20 songs. If the station was always programmed in the "on shuffle" perspective, I'd probably never tune out, because it sounds like what I get if I put my own music collection on random. I don't understand why we can only get a good variety of music as a stunt, and why it can't be the norm.
Quit calling it "shuffle" and doing it twice a year like it's something special, make it your normal format, and I'd be a lot more likely to listen all the time. But I guess that's just me...
So I have to ask a question of people who are in the business. Why put a station "on shuffle" as a stunt? The very idea that it's a stunt seems to give away the fact that the other 50 weeks of the year, the station is entirely over-programmed to the same 20 tracks, and isn't playing a variety of what the listeners want. Why is "a big playlist" a stunt? Why is it that I can only hear these songs on the radio when a station decides to go buck wild and play something that isn't in the current charts?
Back when WMFS first went on the air, this weekend is what they sounded like all the time. I've mostly given up on them (even to the point of dropping them from my car's presets) because they're always playing the same 20 songs. If the station was always programmed in the "on shuffle" perspective, I'd probably never tune out, because it sounds like what I get if I put my own music collection on random. I don't understand why we can only get a good variety of music as a stunt, and why it can't be the norm.
Quit calling it "shuffle" and doing it twice a year like it's something special, make it your normal format, and I'd be a lot more likely to listen all the time. But I guess that's just me...
