Thursday, February 11, 2010

Name Those Tunes

Radio formats have names -- not just the generic ones, like "Top 40," Beautiful Music" "AOR" or "Modern Country," either; the outfits what thunk 'em up give 'em nifty brand names, like Burkhart/Abrams "Super Stars," which is the original mass-market AOR format, or "Jack" which is supposed to be like loadin' up your $GENERIC DIGITAL MUSIC DEVICE with tunes and pluggin' it into the radio station.

So, on my $GDMD (which happens to be a pawn-shop iPod), there is a weird assortment of semi-easy-on-the-ears but somewhat skewed stuff -- from Concrete Blonde to Raymond Scott, mixmaster layerings of Herb Alpert and old-school rap (this actually works. Don't ask me why or how), lush Lori Line covers of soft pop, Zero 7, Ace Of Base, a piece of music hammered out of Dan Rather newscasts, the Ditty Bops, Donovan Leitch, Glen Miller, Steely Dan, Pink Martini and on and on; it actually works as background but it's a bit...h'mm. Day-Glo® plaid? But oh, brother, do I gotta name for it: ...Don't think I'll get many takers, though.

Update: Discovered there's a documentary in the works about the brilliantly inventive Raymond Scott! Kewlness.

6 comments:

CGHill said...

If someone were actually putting that on an HD Radio subchannel, I'd consider buying HD.

But not until.

pdb said...

I'd tune in, you betcha.

Timmeehh said...

I just listen to internet radio, mostly Groove Salad on SOMA.FM and the various chill out channels on Digitally Imported. People who work on Starships might like the Space Station or Space Music channels at the afore mentioned sites.

I still like Zero 7, but only their first two albums.

Drang said...

"Music from The Hidden Frontier..."

WV: caeridsi. That's where I did basic training. Damned Drill Sergeant only spoke Latin...

Old Grouch said...

Somebody say Raymond Scott?

Note that the Metropole Orchestra/Beau Hunks recordings are recent stereo recreations... and those guys are good! Highly recommended.

(Some of these discs have US distribution, shoot me a e-mail if you're interested.)

Roberta X said...

I shall indeed be talkin' to you about that, O.G.; generally I enjoy their work.

I do have one quibble with the Beau Hunks: I have caught them occasionally getting the notes right while missing the point -- their take on "Reckless Night On An Ocean Liner" is the most obvious: there should be seagulls, buoy bells and a (smallish) marine steam engine in there, you can hear them in the Quintette recording, but it was too darned subtle for a score to show it and somehow, the Beau Hunks missed it. What irks me is that their performance and recording is preferable in every other way; but they played it exactly as it laid, missing the faux-musique concrète and that bothers me immensely.