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It’s the same old story on the radio and at the local nightspot. "Text us your requests" or "please keep the requests coming in and we’ll play your favourite song for you". They never do, especially if you request rock or heavy metal.
If you just happen to like rock or heavy metal, you’re highly unlikely to get your song played though. Unless you choose mainstream pop music or a song that the DJ likes anyway your request will get ignored. A classic example of this recently happened when I was listening to my local radio station. Right at the start of their two-hour evening show I sent a text requesting that they play Forever Free by WASP. It’s quite an old track, a little heavy in places but quite acceptable for the radio I would have thought. Anyway, in between every song they played they still pleaded with the listeners to send in more requests. I never heard my song in amongst all the commercial drivel that they played.
You get exactly the same in nightclubs and pubs that have a DJ spot at the weekend. If you’re lucky they will play a ‘mini rock session’ which usually consists of Bryan Adams and The Summer of ’69, some Queen, The Darkness and maybe some Guns ‘N’ Roses. In other words those rare examples of ‘soft publicly acceptable’ rock songs that get played to death on Radio One and in some cases make it into the charts.
It’s all utter garbage and anyone that listens to the radio in this country just gets brainwashed with mindless drivel. It’s bad enough having to listen to their poor sense of humour and pointless chatter about celebrities and soaps in between tracks, but when the play list is as boring and predictable as it is, you might as well just switch off.
No wonder fans of real music are starting to tune into Internet radio and to stations across the pond. In the US there are some really good rock and classic rock radio stations that put broadcasters in this country to shame.
My advice, send your DJ a request. Request politely that he or she broadens their taste in music a little and maybe slips in the odd decent rock song.
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At my same workplace in the late seventies, we had an eight track cartridge player, piping music to the shop floor, which played in a continuous loop until some-one changed the cartridge, rather like Ram FM, some things never change,
As soon as I get out of work into my Volvo I put on smooth radio, they always put on records that you would have requested anyway
On many occasions, particularly on bank holidays, christmas etc, on Radio 1, they have a "10-hour takeover" show, where you can send in your requests.
A couple of weeks ago, I was listening to the Saturday Request Show, and texted in to hear a Girls Aloud song (yes, I like GA..), and the DJs were saying - "If you'd like a request on this show, keep your texts coming in".
I waited with baited breath for my request to be read, but they completely ignored the rest of the request texts and used those gaps for playing either a new release or the DJs Record of the Week, then the next minute, they've switched to taking telephone requests, and strangely enough, they must have only taken 2 calls; I had a go myself, the phone was just ringing constantly.
After about 20 minutes, I gave up, then they moved onto another feature involving calling a lady who was on the phone, to go through her ideal party tracks.
To cut a long story short, it was such a con.. I wouldn't be surprised that the callers were of those who actually work for R1 in one way or another.
This show moved too quickly for my liking - all they said at the end is thank you for all your requests, and sorry that they couldn't play them - the show is 3 hours long (!!)
Instead of complying with the playlist, couldn't they have made an effort to play the incoming requests instead?
It makes my blood boil!!
TCPDJ