I don’t listen to the radio much. Sometimes when I’m driving, I turn on the radio but usually get annoyed by the commercials, the hosts or the music. I then switch to Spotify, where I can choose my own music, without unwanted interruptions by talkshow hosts and brands.
Looking at the enormous growth on-demand services for music (Spotify), tv shows (Netflix) and even newspapers (Blendle) it seems obvious the trend is ‘choice’. Sure, there’s something to be said for curation and discovery, but success cases for curation and discovery (22tracks, Pandora) all have one thing in common: I can skip what I don’t like and lose the ads.
And choice is exactly what traditional radio doesn’t offer. All the hundreds of radio stations I can receive with my digital radio don’t make up for the fact that I don’t have the control I have like when I’m listening to Spotify.
Still, radio isn’t dead at all. Actually, a phenomenon you might remember from the early days of the internet is making a big comeback and artists and broadcasters are all getting on board: It’s podcasts.
Sure, that might sound like that old uncle that used to ‘broadcast’ his ‘radioshow’ about birds in his backyard to the internet 15 years ago and made the whole family download and listen – it’s not. Whatever music or topic you’re after, you’ll find a podcast for it, probably recorded by some of the best in that business.
Two of the biggest podcast players today have been around for quite a while:
Soundcloud is very popular with artist and broadcasters for it’s big following, customization and the ability to upload individual tracks. That’s also the reason it’s known for piracy.
It’s little brother Mixcloud (not by the same company) is better known for electronic music, and most for DJ mixes because of unlimited uploading. When uploading DJ mixes to Soundcloud you’ll run out of free storage quite quickly.
Across these platforms there’s an enormous diversity in music and radio to be found, I’ll list 5 of my favorites below:
1. The Guardian Tech Weekly (link)
This weekly radio show by the Guardian brings the latest in tech in 40 minutes. Usually one show centers around one specific topic, like the launch of Apple Music, the Future of Bitcoin or Driverless Cars. Professionally produced, well researched and often including several interviews with subject experts this is a great listen.
The Guardian also has podcasts on other topics, such as Science and Politics.
2. Red Bull Thre3style (link)
For anyone who can appreciate some real turntablism skills, check out Red Bull Thre3style. This competition – organized by Red Bull – is held around the world and ends with a global final to decide the Thre3style champion.
Each DJ gets a 15 minute shift where they can play whatever they like, as long as they have at least three styles or genres of music in that time. It doesn’t matter what genres of music are chosen so long as the DJ can make them work together.
All mixes from local finals and the global final are uploaded to the Red Bull Thre3style account, so sometimes you’ll have to sift through the crap to find the gems, but when you find them it’s definitely worth it. For example, our very own (Dutch) DJ DNS below:
3. Noisia Radio (link)
It’s long been very common for DJs to have their own weekly radio shows. Often an hour long DJ mix they sold to multiple radio stations across the world, to be played on a Friday- or Saturday night to get people in the mood for clubbing. These mixes often found their way to websites like Liveset Database for download, so that fans could listen to them any time they wanted.
Most DJs have recognized this demand and have grabbed the opportunity that Soundcloud provided them, by publishing their own weekly shows and connect directly with their fans on the platform.
The Dutch drum & bass collective Noisia only just started their Noisia Radio show, but are already getting over 75,000 listeners to some of their shows. They use their weekly hour to promote new music from their label, give some background to the production process and play tracks they don’t always get to play in their mixes, like music they’ve produced for video games or certain classics.
Compared to most of the weekly DJ podcasts out there by DJs like Steve Aoki (Aoki’s house), Don Diablo (Hexagon radio), Hardwell (Hardwell on Air) and Diplo (Diplo & Friends), the Noisia show sounds more like an actual radio show. There’s hardly any mixing, just the DJs introducing their favorite tracks.
4. Fast Moving Targets (link)
For four years now, Fast Moving Targets has been one of the best tech- and innovation shows in The Netherlands. They broadcast live every Tuesday night, and publish their show on YouTube and Soundcloud every week. The format is straightforward: Two guys interview people that are doing interesting things in tech and innovation. They’ve interviewed a lot of people over the last couple of years, like Werner Vogels (Amazon), Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten (The Next Web) and Raimo van der Klein (Layar).
The topics range from music to medical, from startup accelerators to corporate innovation and from Fintech to the sharing economy.
Definitely worth going through their archive and listening to some interviews – only in Dutch though.
