Internet radio
On the occasions that I venture back mentally to my days of listening to the radio in the 80s, I am struck by something. I remember very clearly receiving a digital clock radio as a birthday resent in the early 80s, and thinking it was the most amazing invention because at the slightest rotation of an analogue dial I was able to hop to any number of other stations that were broadcasting at the time. This included mainly Manchester stations, but also the odd foreign language channel, which was tres exotic, and if I was really lucky, a police channel. Nothing beat the buzz of tuning in to a live police broadcast of a 1985 Ford Cortina being chased down the M62 on a wet February evening.
I graduated from this to a full on Alba midi system in 1986 - and again the thrill of having a comprehensive sound system - with the girth and the go-faster flashes and the whirring of the cassette heads...well it is something that is difficult to reproduce now that we are all firmly ensconced in the digital world.
However now that I am fully immersed in Apple tech, I downloaded the Tune-In Radio app - and what do you know, I found myself once again experiencing the thrill of having an enormous panoply of radio stations from which to choose. Of course now the choice is global and is digital, but it still raised the hairs on the back of my neck to listen to a Swedish Jazz station playing John Coltrane at 3pm KL time. Of course digital internet radio stations are not exactly cutting edge - but the point is that this free little app brought me back to a halcyon time in my youth when the world was full of possibilities and all kinds of strange music. And as a human being in my 40s, it was nice to be transported back to that time.
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