If you read The Wire, then you know that font. My review of the book Radio Art Zone, an anthology collection, is in the new issue (the one with Don Cherry on the cover). Once it’s fish wrap (not that I recommend disposing of your copies), I’ll post the full review here. Meanwhile, the opening sentences:
With “Radio, Radio,” Elvis Costello forcefully bit the hand that fed him. Singing that very phrase on his 1978 second album This Year’s Model three years before the launch of MTV, he condemned how radio can “anaesthetise” an audience through homogenisation.
Over time, the song bit Costello back. Its rousing chorus, much like those of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA” and Credence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son,” made the track feel like a singalong celebration of its subject, rather than the intended critique.
Such is the power of radio. Or was. FM and AM have long since given way to streaming and downloads. Video didn’t kill the radio star, TCP/IP did. Which is to say, the internet. Far into the wake of internet ubiquity and radio’s commensurate decline, the book Radio Art Zone appears.