Internet Killed The Radio Star

To be quite honest, I don't listen to the radio much these days. I tried listening to the radio when I first arrived here in New York City--the urban format stations- and for the first time in my life, I found listening to music to be a pain. For most of my life, I have always lived in a major music market so I've always had the privilege of diversity in music. Even through listening to one preferred station in my younger days, I still felt like I got a wide range of music from within a specified genre. Let's take hip-hop for example.

There once was a time when the radio would play a wide range of hip-hop, from A Tribe Called Quest to Tupac to DMX, with a good mix of R&B/Pop/Hip-Hop genre benders like Mary J. Blige, Ashanti and the like. More so today, it seems as if only five artists even get radio play though there are a slew of successful artists out. Nowadays, artists are able to promote their music to the masses themselves all through the help of the internet. Soulja Boy, Wiz Khalifa, Drake and Kid Cudi are just a few of the artists who have replaced the importance of the stereo with URLs and downloads. Now, with the help of Shuffler.fm, internet just may kill the radio altogether.

'It's like Pandora or MTV for music blogs.' 

That's what a testimonial proclaims near the footer of the Shuffler.fm website. And it's probably the most accurate description one could provide in everyday conversation.