I'm 38 and tired of it - especially the very fast-paced radio, the stations that play thumping rave music all day long, which are pretty common here. It fits well with the local British culture, which is increasingly non-stop, alcoholic, drug-fuelled, individualistic, shallow, especially in urban areas such as where I live. Even the "chill" stations are "chill" in the sense of "hungover on a Sunday morning after a BIG NIGHT OUT", it's all whooshy Ibiza chillout mixes.
Ugh, is that
all you have over there? That's pretty miserable if you're not into that scene. I guess that's not unlike the situation here, where most CHRs seem to play minor variations of the same tired playlists, with many nowadays featuring some variety of rap or Hip Hop (as I've said elsewhere, I have no objection to and actually like the classic "clean" rap of the 70s and 80s (I have a friend who recorded some Hip Hop "songs" in this classic style, and it's good), but this new "gangsta" rap stuff that's been getting increasingly prevalent in recent years has got to go somewhere other than in my face).
Unlike UK radio, however, we
do at least have
some variety over here in the US, which I do appreciate (this thread probably wouldn't exist if we didn't).
Personally, I find Beautiful Music a bit too saccharine, it reminds me of going to the supermarket as a kid when they used to have "supermarket music", before they started playing pop in supermarkets. But increasingly, I gravitate very heavily towards formats playing music that has more of a melody or a story to it even though I'm "too young". I like Soft AC, classic country, yacht rock.
I used to find Beautiful Music (henceforth BM) too stodgy myself, and often avoided it (notable exception: Bert Kaempfert, which I was introduced to by a friend back in 2000 or 2001).
However, in light of recent cultural developments, I've come to find that BM is really not so bad, and I've actually begun to like it quite a bit (BM in supermarkets and such seems to be something that died out sometime in the early 90s, as my earliest supermarket memories don't feature it (the music I
did hear was, as recently as 15 years ago, much more Gold leaning, with many oldies and Soft AC being played, than it is now, which is largely modern with the occasional "classic hit" from the 70s, 80s or 90s).
The so-called "yacht rock" also known by its contemporary moniker, "soft rock" is good too, and I enjoy listening to it all the time when I want to hear vocals (traditional BM is largely devoid of vocals it seems, although newer hybrid Soft AC/BM formats seem to have more of them mixed in with the standard BM fare).
I can't be the only one who's not yet aged out of the "money demographic" who wants something other than tinny pop, rap and EDM.
You're not!
The thing is, while there
are streams that can deliver any kind of format one could ever want, discovery isn't so straightforward, because it seems like it's the streaming versions of the same tired things we hear on terrestrial radio that get pushed more prominently than anything else. And also, I've found that many streams tend to use low quality recordings for some of these songs, with seemingly fairly little effort to make the overall quality consistent song to song (there was one BM stream I listened to recently (Abacus radio, I think). The music selection was decent, but the segues were hideously out of whack, with a new song beginning well before the last one was finished, creating a dischordant clash. A true BM station from back in the format's heyday would
never have allowed such sloppiness, and they took great pride in delivering the cleanest, highest quality and most consistent sound that was possible with the equipment of the time, almost to the point of obsession in many cases).
c
