👀 Please don’t stop the music

#428 | We’d never let video kill the radio star.

As teenagers, two of my friends and I really got into the local radio. I don’t know how we discovered that we shared this frankly uncool interest, but we hardly thought to question it at that age.

I remember how we once took great pains to sneak a portable radio to school to listen to some random tunes during lunch. Now that I think about it, we probably didn’t have to be so sneaky; I’m not sure anyone at school would even know how to punish us for carrying around what was hardly cutting-edge technology by then.

Still, I think the secrecy added a certain thrill to the whole hobby.

It was so much fun. We eventually progressed from being mere listeners of the radio to active callers. We’d each try our luck before bed every night, and whoever got through would dedicate a song to the other two that night. High fives exchanged the next morning.

We did it so often that some radio jockeys began recognising our voices. A few teachers even asked us if it was indeed our squeaky voices they’d heard on the radio the previous night. 

I cringe when I think of all the embarrassing shit I’ve said on air.

The sad thing is that I can’t recall how we stopped doing that, either. One of those friends is now (according to the rumours) a Bitcoin millionaire, while the other died in a freak accident a couple of years ago.

It pains me to say that we drifted apart for whatever reason, but I still listen to the songs we shared on the radio all those years ago. That music just hits differently, and it’s why I will always love the radio.

So, as I searched for the kookiest radio stations on the internet, the one I share with as many people as possible is Radio Garden. It lets you randomly sweep across the globe, picking out stations from wherever you fancy—like any standard internet radio.

But what I like about it is the playlists created by the Radio Garden team. And I’m grateful because there’s no way anyone would know about them otherwise. 

Would you even think of looking for a birdsong radio, where birds chirp endlessly to welcome the dawn? Or would you go hunting for a vintage obscura radio (perfect for JOT readers) that’s been painstakingly put together by researchers trying to save nearly forgotten music from the depths of internet oblivion?

My favourite playlist is Time Travel because it’s nostalgia bait, and that’s my jam. It’s also because I think music has always been my way of rediscovering pieces of my childhood that I thought I’d lost long ago.

I’d love to hear about your favourite playlist and if you’ve ever loved the radio like I have.

Arpit