Until recently, there was what I call a “longhair station” here in LA. That is to say, a radio station that played old-school jazz, swing, ragtime, good showtunes, and the like. Every Saturday I would listen to a program called “The Swingin’ Years”, and Saturday nights, if I wasn’t out, I would listen to good jazz. (There’s another jazz station in this area, but they mostly play that lame-ass Woody Allen-turtleneck-sweater jazz lite.) Two Saturdays ago I hit the memory button on my car stereo…and got Spanish-language music instead. I waited till I got to a parking lot, then scanned back and forth, and finally had to accept the fact that my station was gone, replaced by yet another Mexican station.
God knows, we don’t need a diverse pre-rock station in LA. Heck, we haven’t had a new Mexican station since last December! Let’s change ALL LA radio to a complete mariachi-and-Enrique Iglecias format! We don’t even need K-Rock!
Posted in the Pit because I suppose this will be taken as racist. But I am extremely fed up. I’m all for diversity, but LA has FOUR Mexican stations already. I shouldn’t have to lose the one station that plays the kind of music I can’t just go out and buy.
Really? Only four? If I scanned up and down my dial, I imagine I would run into at least six or seven Spanish-language stations (I’ve never counted). I don’t mind that. What I mind is that all the English language stations SUCK! AGH!
Kyla, I never counted either. I think there are at least four Mexican stations; maybe some of them take up so much bandwidth that it seems like seven. Or maybe there are seven. At any rate, I just don’t understand why one demographic is overrepresented, while others have one station each, and some aren’t represented at all.
Rilch, I wouldn’t know why some demographics are not represented at all, but you live in LA, and I believe that about half of the population there is Spanish-speaking. So I don’t think that sounds like overrepresentation. On the other hand, I bet there aren’t nearly as many stations in Japanese, Korean, Armenian, or Hindi.
Kyla, the bottom line for me is, I liked that station, and it was my only source for good pre-1950 music. Regardless of what format replaced it, it’s gone, and that makes me want to chew glass.
Did it ever occur to anyone that, just as there are different styles of “American” or English language music, so, are there different styles of “Mexican” or “Spanish” or “Latino” music?
Rilchiam, if you were only listening to “The Swingin’ Years” on that station, you were missing most of it. KPCC the public broadcast station for Pasadena City College also played the best alternative adult rock (is that what they call that format) in LA throughout the week in the evenings including a great deal of folk music that shows up nowhere else. The Friday Night Blues Review followed by Bill Gardner’ Rhapsody in Black played blues and doo-wap all night long on Friday. On Sunday’s, you could get The European Sunday Concert featuring the finest in Oom-Pah music anywhere. (An acquired taste, but better than a lot of the drivel on the radio.) But you were listening to a different station on Saturday night, because that was the night for The Sancho Show, the greatest Latin music show on the planet, specializing in what’s called the “East L.A.” sound - all music not played on any other station in L.A.
I bring all of this up because this station was murdered by its corporate parent in the quest for ratings. That’s why you’re finding all of those Mexican stations in L.A. That’s where the demographics are. All of the great L.A. rock stations have been sacrificed to this madness. But that’s commercial radio. It’s not supposed to be that way in public radio. KPCC was taken over by a Minnesota public broadcasting corporation who decided to remake the station as an all-talk station exactly like several other all talk stations to chase the exact same demograhics. Why? Because the most despicable scum on the face of the earth are radio programming executives.
“Did it ever occur to anyone that, just as there are different styles of “American” or English language music, so, are there different styles of “Mexican” or “Spanish” or “Latino” music?”
I couldn’t have said it better myself. I suspect there are far more Angelenos (that means, “people who live in Los Angeles” [that means “The Angels,” which is short for a really long Spanish name]) who listen to salsa or ranchero than pre-1950s jazz and bebop.
Consider yourself outnumbered, amigo. Viva la raza!
Rilchiam, this is nothing more than economics, like it or not. Supply/demand, nothing more.
The radio stations are going to respond to the listenership; there was demand for another Spanish language station, that’s what the area got. Personally, I love music from many countries (in many languages). I’m happy to hear most types of Rock, Some Metal, Latin, Jazz, Sometimes Classical, and Pop. It’s a shame if the music is not available to those who have never heard it, you at least know it’s out there. Sounds like you’ll have to get your favorites on tape for now.
Juniper,
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Consider yourself outnumbered, amigo. Viva la raza!
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Outnumbered, as in what? You know something we should know about? La Raza as far as I can tell is a bunch of racists, since it translates to “The Race”. Nothing redeeming here. I sure hope “la raza” crawles back in la hole. Bite me asswipe!
I like spanish stations (I have two on my quick-dial), but I can only listen for a song or two at a time because the ads seem soo loong when you can’t make out a word.
Useless fact time: The full name of Los Angeles is El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciuncula (the town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of the Little Portion). It is abbreviated to LA, or 3.63% of its original length.