Ken Dunkin

I've been suffering from radio burnout lately. If I hear Smash Mouth, Bush, Citizen King or Sugar Ray one more time I'm going to scream.

Don't get me wrong. Each band is good in its own right. I like each group and own a copy of each group's disc. The problem comes when radio stations play the same music over and over all day.

I know they get requests and if they don't play that all-important Backstreet Boys request then someone else probably will. That doesn't make it right.

Most of the time I listen to the radio to hear a somewhat familiar song. But lately the same song I had wanted to listen to is haunting me. How many more times do we really need to hear "Scar Tissue" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers?

Too many people let their listening pleasure be decided by MTV. A secret of success has been to throw a band over and over into peoples faces on television. It spells sales for the label. The label then has more money to pour into MTV's advertising, who then will play the same video over and over again. How else do you explain someone like Mariah Carey? Her new single is almost laughable yet it still is in rotation on every video show and radio station. That is what's wrong with music today. The general public isn't being exposed to enough good new music. We keep getting the same retreads throwing their music out. Rabid fans go out and buy the same artist over and over. They let mainstream radio decide what is 'good music' and never attempt to look for themselves.

I was once one of those people who only listened to what had already hit. I listened to a lot of oldies and top-40. The older I got the more mundane these genres had gotten for me. So I started listening to stations such as KDHX which play a variety of music. Most bands the everyday person has never heard of and probably never will. Another station 93.3 FM also plays music many people have never heard. The difference is KNSX plays new music from popular artists. Instead of playing the same tracks over and over it debuts the new singles from popular artist. And while "The Point" claims to play new music first they are often scooped by 93.3.

I'm not trying to bash any of the radio stations. I realize that each is trying to fill a specific niche in St. Louis. It all comes down to business. They need to make their money, hence they play what is popular at the moment, even if that means playing the same Britney Spears single 35 times a day.