One of the great concert pianists of the twentieth century has departed. Van Cliburn died this morning at the age of 78. He is best remembered as the winner of the 1958 International Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow—a victory that contributed to the “thaw” of the Cold War in late 1950s and early 1960s. Van Cliburn […]
Archive | Music
SiriusXM and WWOZ deliver the music of New Orleans for Super Bowl weekend
For Super Bowl weekend SiriusXM’s Real Jazz channel 67 is featuring Radio New Orleans with music founded on the roots of jazz from the game’s host city. This special programming was put together in conjunction with community radio WWOZ, which focuses on Jazz and New Orleans heritage music. WWOZ is broadcasting live on Saturday from […]
Thanksgiving “Alice’s Restaurant” Radio Tradition Continues in 2012
Catch Alice’s Restaurant on the 2023 radio dial. See our latest listening guide. A few years back I wrote about the tradition of many radio stations playing the lengthy song “Alice’s Restaurant” on Thanksgiving. Every year I’m curious to see how many stations plan to play the classic folk song. Apparently listeners are vocal about […]
An even bigger Songs About Radio Spotify playlist
Thanks to the many Radio Survivor readers who posted additional suggestions to my initial Songs About Radio Spotify playlist. They were all excellent recommendations, and I’ve added as many as I could to the list, which is now 79 songs long. John Anderson came through with a remarkable catalog of tunes about pirate radio. I couldn’t […]
31 songs about radio: a Spotify playlist
Over the last two years, Paul Riismandel, Jennifer Waits, Helen Yamamoto, and I have posted various mentions and lists of popular songs about radio (Paul, Jennifer, Jennifer, Helen, and me). Many of you wrote in with your own personal favorites. After noting one of Spotify’s best features—letting subscribers publish playlists on the web via embedded HTML—I […]
Digging into the Spotify classical radio “gold mine”
My colleague Paul Riismandel has been warming up to the Spotify music service, of late, and gave it a pretty decent review in a recent post. Paul also mentioned to me that Spotify has been advertising itself as a “goldmine” for a wide variety of formats, including classical music. This aroused my attention, since I […]
Chicago’s WXRT celebrates 40 years serving up an increasingly rare format
It’s an increasingly rare thing to find a station that has maintained its format (and call letters) for more than a decade, nevermind 40 years. This week Chicago commercial rock station WXRT begins celebrating its fortieth year on air with something called “40 years in 40 days.” Starting Monday, each day the station is highlighting […]
One year in, how I learned to like Spotify – a follow-up review.
I can barely believe that it’s been over a year since I wrote my first review of Spotify, which itself came a month after the service debuted in the US. At the time I was most critical of the relative rarity of free Spotify accounts, in addition to a monthly limit of 10 listening hours […]
KDFC “Opera in the Ball Park” decision looms
As regular Radio Survivor readers may recall, I’ve been lamenting the lack of vocal music on classical radio stations like KDFC-FM in San Francisco, and not a few classical radio stations in general. Well, it appears that KDFC has heard my plea, or more likely someone else’s (I’ll bet I’m not the only person whose […]
Radio still “dominant” music discoverer? Contested readings of Nielsen data
The latest Nielsen survey on music listening reads as so: “Music Discovery Still Dominated by Radio, Says Nielsen Music 360 Report.” Here are the marquee statistics from the Nielsen press release: Radio is still the dominant way people discover music 48% discover music most often through the radio 10% discover music most often through friends/relatives […]