Anita and I listen to Today FM in the morning. It’s a national station, broadcasting somewhere between 100 and 102 MHz all over the country. Most of the radio stations here have a programming format that I would describe as old-fashioned: a potpourri of DJ banter, call-in games and prizes, comedy routines, and pop music across at thirty-year span.
Here’s a sampling of music that we hear quite frequently on the radio. You’ll probably recognize most of it from American radio!
- Hard-Fi – Can’t Get Along (Without You)
- Timbaland presents OneRepublic – Apologise
- James Blunt – 1973
- Mark Ronson – Valerie feat. Amy Winehouse
- Feist – 1,2,3,4
- Rihanna – Don’t Stop The Music (“Umbrella” was the song of the summer, quite appropriately.)
- Alicia Keys – No One
- Craig David – Hot Stuff
- Bruce Springsteen – Radio Nowhere
- Kanye West – Good Times feat. T-Pain
- Paddy Casey – Addicted To Company (Paddy Casey is Dublin-based, and I don’t know whether he’s known in the US, but his style would be familiar nonetheless.)
- Kate Nash – Foundations
- Plain White T’s – Hey There Delilah
- Jennifer Lopez – Do It Well
- Foo Fighters – Long Road To Ruin
- Ryan Adams – Everybody knows
- Nelly Furtado – Do it
- Foo Fighters – Band on the Run
- Cherry Ghost – 4am
- Queens of the Stoneage – Make it with chu
There’s a lot of nostalgia-rock mixed in, particularly from requests. Although Today FM plays a fair number of Irish artists, they don’t dominate the airwaves at all.
In the afternoons, many stations move to a talk-radio format. One program in particular, Liveline with Joe Duffy, seemed to have an effect on the elections in May. Some politicians and analysts treat it as the genuine voice of the people. I find this quite unlike the American presumption that US talk radio is partisan (but maybe more like the attitude towards political television shows). I must add that many Irish commentators bemoan the role of call-in radio in Irish politics.
1 Comment to “Pop music”
3 December 2007
That’s interesting that there is such variety in your radio station. I’m surprised this is the case for Dublin, but when I spent some time in Springfield, IL, I found that radio stations played a much wider variety of music than their Up-State counterparts. My theory is that in an area with smaller listeners, stations need to appear to a more diverse listenership to get the same number of listeners. In big cities, radio stations can afford to play a more focused playlist.