ON COLLEGE RADIO

I love to have a soap box (the citation manager Zotero, the movie sorry baby, firefox) and right now I can’t shut up about campus radio. I got on the air waves during my semester abroad by joining a group show, so I didn’t have to come with ideas. Then I came up with a bunch of ideas for a show and took it back to my tiny college, where I tell my 10 listeners, most of them my co-hosts aunts and uncles, that if they don’t tune in again next week their bloodline will be cursed.

I’ve been seeing a lot of videos online about getting off algorithms by getting an ipod, but nothing about returning to DJs. How are you supposed to find new music to put on the iPod?

The DJs are the best thing about college radio. For the tunes, but also the chatter. A guy on WSUM (UW Madison) played Chilean music and said “of course I’m going to talk about baby animals at the club.” A high schooler on WRSU (Rutger’s radio) said that you really have to vibe with Lana Del Ray’s music to get it. They have pseudonames: on KALX (UC Berkley) DJ 9-5 thanked DJ Parasitic Twin. Someone else is listening to music with you, telling you the name of the past three songs, chatting about their week in the style of a 40’s announcer or someone trying to put a baby to sleep.

DJs are generally college students, but at bigger universities community members contribute to, building community and supporting year-round radio. Some college radios like Princeton’s and UPenn’s have separated from the college entirely, entering the non profit/public radio sphere. Either way, there is none of the commercial pressure on traditional radio that I grew up on, where Sorry by Justin Bieber would play on loop. Most college radio stations don’t have ads, and when they do, the ads are civilly minded. I’ve learned about animal shelters, mutual aid projects, and free retirement fund calculators.

NONE OF THE HITS ALL OF THE TIME

For decades, college radio has been the airwaves of the underground. When FM took off the the 1960s (check this stat) college radio expanded beyond university campuses playing punk, and alternative music before they went mainstream. KVRX, UT Austin's station's slogan is "None of the hits, all of the time." Bands would send in their records (tapes? I am a total baby) and get exposure through the radio. College radio was also where student journalists reported on the vietnam war and the student protest response to it, and several got shutdown for political activity. To me, the history of college radio, to commitment to DIY, new music, the community building (all my friends tuned in) makes it a perfect example of all the analogue revival that we’re all dying for on neocities.

But college radio is not a nostalgic project. Radio is not dying - several of these stations have thousands of listeners, and after being dead for decades, my college’s radio station is new, modern project. You don’t have to dream about the glorious past of music discovery, because college radio never went anywhere.

How to listen

To get on FM airwaves, college radio stations needed to construct a radio tower, which generally means that today, bigger universities broadcast on both FM and online radio, while smaller stations usually just use online radio. Streamed on the internet, online radio is cheaper (probably?) and has less restrictions. On FM radio, you can’t swear (definitley, but also other stuff?) but on internet radio there are no restrictions. If you have a radio, you can search for your local stations and start listening by turning the dial. If you’re listening on line, you can do that too, but I got into college radio through college-radio.com . Created by indie developer NAME, the site pulls the streams of 125+ stations, from the US, Canada, and Europe allowing you to have up to 10 stations on a dash board and flip through them like it’s a raido. I have found a lot of cool stations this way.

My favorite stations

It’s funny to write an article with the goal of getting more people interested in college radio when for most schools, everyone is going off air for the summer. I finished broadcasting in May. Most stations are still airing, but some of them are just airing station playlists, which are still great, but if you want human DJs, here are a few to check out

Site inspiration

College radio stations also have really cool websites. Here are some of my favorite designs: WREK / KDVS / WYBC / WCBNKCSB