Heh. Fascinating! I wish I had experienced "being a disc jockey", even if it had been on a small radio station, or a college station or whatever. There is very little out there in the way of a playlist generated by a person without the help of the recording industry, the advertising department, computer-generated lists for a target audience, etc etc. I guess maybe on satellite radio and maybe some on the internet?
Oh! Well, radio paradise dot com is something I've enjoyed for quite a few years now. Its playlist is crafted by a guy and his girlfriend or wife I think. And its GREAT!! Songs that you don't generally associate with one another flow naturally and enhance each other. You can sometimes tell the theme (for lack of a better word) of the songs that are being picked. Also, one song will lead to another in ways that show that a HUMAN BEING is behind the programming. And there are no ads, except a short station identifier every once in a while. They are "listener supported". I don't think I have ever heard the same song twice on there. (As you are probably aware, many stations have a "rotation" list, which means of course that you go back to the top and start over at some point.) Radio Paradise opened my eyes to new songs and artists (and to some degree, genres) that I had not heard before.
Their website allows you to choose the streaming rate and digital media type, so you can listen to it on practically any internet link, or with any software.
And I was pleased to see that Roku offers it as a choice on their "streaming media" player. The station owners have added beautiful HD photographs that get displayed on your TV while the songs play. And the artist and song name show up on the screen unobtrusively. I recommend it.
Yes, it was a great experience. I spent about six months at the college radio station and then took some air-check tapes around and got hired by the second station I visited.
I hosted a rock ‘n roll show on Saturday nights and a lot of time of the day on Sunday. Believe me, that spinning the disks on Saturday nights was a blast! I was all of 22 years old and loved the visits—they allowed visitors into the actual broadcast booth then...it was a different age—from the gals, who seemed to think I was something special. Poor things.
We did have a playlist (top 40) but I was allowed to play a limited amount of “oldies” of my choice. Got a lot of compliments for my choices.
I went on to work at bigger stations, where I learned a lot. The next station I went to work for played only “good music,” alas. But I tired of that and found another rock ‘n roll station.
Thanks for that reference of radioparadise.com. I’ll check it out.