Remember this?

Radio has certainly changed over the years. As a kid I had a transistor radio (AM) and listened to the "Top 40". Then one summer day I was setting up my slot car track and the UPS guy was delivering a package (more track and some new cars!). He noticed my folk's Curtis Mathes console TV/Record Player/AM/FM stereo, and asked if the FM side worked.

I said I didn't know, he asked if he could try it out, so I let him have a go at it. He tuned in a station that was playing nothing but album sides. And when the album side was finished the DJ would come on with that really laid back, "Heyyyyyy, well that was Humble Pie, Rockin' the Fillmore, and now, Grand Funk, Live", and the dude sounded like he had just burned a fatty.

No commercials.

No 2 minute songs punctuated with 4 minutes of commercial crap and hype.

Just really good music, all the time.

This was back around 1966.

As I soon learned the FM rock radio stations of the time were far better than the AM Top 40. Immediately I ditched the transistor radio and any time I had the house to myself the FM stereo was on, tuned to the local FM underground rock station.

And about that time I began buying albums.

33 1/3 RPM albums.

I have several hundred albums, many long out of print and not available on CD or iTunes.

Over the years I would find myself in a vehicle with nothing more than the standard AM radio, and discovered shows like Art Bell Coast to Coast, Sally Jesse Raphael, and Bruce Williams Talk Net.

But when AM Top 40 gave way to the FM band and the really cool underground FM rock stations fell to the wayside in favor of corporate FM "Top 40" rock stations I gave up on radio. It sucks to listen to the hyped up commercialized crap that goes with profit driven radio.

About 12 years ago I was given an XM radio for Christmas. I always said I would never pay for radio, but when I discovered satellite radio, and how the commercial free stations were similar to the old FM underground style I gave in. And of course it is nice to be able to drive 3,000 miles and never have to search for the next station as you pass from town to town, or endure the fading away of a station just when a really good tune is playing.

And I don't have to pack around 200 cd's either.
 
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