Spin The Dial

They're back inside my radio. They're back inside the radio and they're messing with it. The Morning Show on KFOG is different, and it doesn't take a sensitive ear to discern the difference. The most obvious change would be that there is more than one voice talking to me between songs. The need to "chat it up" in the morning has reasserted itself, and now I get to hear sparkling repartee along with the music that starts my day. Joy.
My friend the once and future disc jockey has always maintained that the way radio is supposed to sound is this: play a record, talk a little bit, play another record. I understand that market research will probably not bear out this simple process, seeing as how it completely ignores the commercial aspect entirely, but shouldn't it be that simple? Okay, there should be traffic updates and the occasional bit of news, but shouldn't it sound like somebody playing music? The level of forced intimacy is just a little much, reminding me of a past when there was no "News Team." There was once guy who read the news and hinted at the weather. If there were sports, it was scores of games that had already taken place. That's the way I feel about "The Morning Show" on KFOG. It continues to slide back into this gabfest for which I am the only person who has an issue. I liked the idea that one person was sitting behind a big console with dozens of CDs arranged around them, pausing only long enough to back announce that cover version of "Blister In The Sun" was actually performed by Guster.
Instead, I'm getting a lot of cheery banter that sounds like it belongs at a much different hour, which is really the chemistry behind FM radio in the AM. If these people can be happily going about their jobs on the radio as you pilot your vehicle to your place of employment, it's going to be a great day, right?
Not as much for me. Now I've got this guy called "No Name" chortling in the background as the once laconic Renee does her best to perk up into the void. They've even brought back "Irish Greg" to fill in that nostalgia piece, returning to the scene of the crime where he was unceremoniously dumped less than a year ago. And since "Irish Greg" is a producer, why is his microphone even turned on? Shouldn't he be, oh I don't know, producing?
I'll keep turning the radio on. I'll keep listening on the off chance that they will make some wild change that actually pleases my ears. Until then, I'm happy just to be the guy in the cheap seats, complaining.