Eclecticity
January 11th, 2010 • Commentary, Genres, Op-Ed
If there is one buzz word associated most with the world of college radio, it is the adjective eclectic. It is in some sense a self identifier; as college radio is normally free format in nature, the breadth of music played can cross a multitude of genres from Heavy Metal to Opera. Indeed, even on the most pretentious radio stations the label of “eclectic” is often applied to its greatest extent.
Take a look at the WRBC schedule and you will find more than a few programs that, lacking a thesaurus, described themselves as an eclectic mix or an eclectic blend of music. Today’s college students are not restricted to the confines of one genre and many shows broadcast on WRBC cross genres over the course of two short hours.
Looking back upon my very limited study of psychology and culture, I started to ponder what our seemingly bizarre blends of musical taste says about us as a population and, indeed, as individuals.
Take, for example, one of my best friends, who is currently on a streak of listening to almost exclusively Lil Wayne and Bright Eyes. These two musicians represent truly two ends of the popular music spectrum. This is primarily representative of a societal need for different kinds of music for different social situations. Lil Wayne represents the weekend evening party music and Bright Eyes or his most played artist, Elliot Smith, are for more low-key situations such as doing homework. This makes sense as a party would not be so fun to attend if all you heard was downbeat folk and it would certainly be odd to blast really aggressive beats at 2:30 in the afternoon on a Tuesday.
I do not think this really gets at heart of the issue as party and non party music so-to-speak is not eclectic in such a traditional sense. I myself am quite a connoisseur of some genres that might be considered strange in my social context. Examples would be Egyptian Pop, Afro-Pop, Japanese Melodramatic Song (Enka), and Baroque music.
Distribution and availability of music has been a key factor in our developing eclectic musical feelings. Anyone with $100 can record a song these days and with a reasonable Internet connection present it in a way such that anyone with a similar connection can hear it.
In actuality, the eclectic nature of WRBC and stations like it is less a result of us having truly eclectic musical tastes. Looking at my top musicians on Last.fm, this is certainly not the case. It is about our ability to experiment with a variety of interesting musics. When spread through one show, maybe even the most “eclectic” show is in fact not so. Over a week of programming, or even just an afternoon, without any sort of creative control levied on the hosts, things can really be all over.
This is really about diversity. College Radio stations are an interesting place to exchange music as you have people coming from all backgrounds, ages, locations, races, religions — you name it — but the one thing they usually have in common is a love of music.
Eclectic we may be, but maybe there’s a better word out there.
-Doug Ray
Doug Ray is the co-host of Saltimbocca & Escargot, Sundays at 8-10 PM Eastern Time on WRBC.