Thanks for the post.
Elvis Costello was after my time but man, did I love Smokey Robinson! I was working my way through college working part-time as a disc jockey at radio stations from 1962 to 1966 and it was great to hear Smokey and similar artists on the station’s earphones and speakers (believe me, it sounded better than what was on the air). They sounded great.
Too bad that today’s young people have to listen to the crap that passes for pop music.
Heh. Fascinating! I wish I had experienced "being a disc jockey", even if it had been on a small radio station, or a college station or whatever. There is very little out there in the way of a playlist generated by a person without the help of the recording industry, the advertising department, computer-generated lists for a target audience, etc etc. I guess maybe on satellite radio and maybe some on the internet?
Oh! Well, radio paradise dot com is something I've enjoyed for quite a few years now. Its playlist is crafted by a guy and his girlfriend or wife I think. And its GREAT!! Songs that you don't generally associate with one another flow naturally and enhance each other. You can sometimes tell the theme (for lack of a better word) of the songs that are being picked. Also, one song will lead to another in ways that show that a HUMAN BEING is behind the programming. And there are no ads, except a short station identifier every once in a while. They are "listener supported". I don't think I have ever heard the same song twice on there. (As you are probably aware, many stations have a "rotation" list, which means of course that you go back to the top and start over at some point.) Radio Paradise opened my eyes to new songs and artists (and to some degree, genres) that I had not heard before.
Their website allows you to choose the streaming rate and digital media type, so you can listen to it on practically any internet link, or with any software.
And I was pleased to see that Roku offers it as a choice on their "streaming media" player. The station owners have added beautiful HD photographs that get displayed on your TV while the songs play. And the artist and song name show up on the screen unobtrusively. I recommend it.
Elvis was part of the "New Wave", the music that came after punk-rock in the 1970s, or was mixed up with it. They took the attitude, and the trimmed down and sparse arrangements, but wrote more complex and interesting songs. Elvis was one of the "angry young men" of the era, along with Joe Jackson, Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, among others. But he could write beautiful songs. Here's one of my favorites from his first album. Alison