I’d like to make a request

I was listening to WIBA 101.5 Madison’s Classic Rock in the car while driving home from an east side errand and heard something that startled me — the DJ taking requests from listeners calling in! Now that startled me — why wait on hold on the phone to talk to a DJ when in 2023 you can hear any song you want at any time, instantly?

And then I thought about it a little more, and realized, it’s not about hearing the song, it’s about getting other people to hear the song. Like me, in the car. 2023 is a golden age of listening to whatever you want but is an absolute wasteland for playing music for other people because everybody is able to listen to whatever they want! So there’s much less picking music for the whole room or picking music for the whole city. But at WIBA they still do it! And so listeners got to play me, in my car, this song

and this song

neither of which was really my cup of tea, but that’s the point, radio offers us the rare opportunity to listen to not whatever we want.