An Internet Radio Reader
To Monopolise Our Ears: What Spotify Wants
— London Review of Books
Spotify was supposed to solve illegal downloading, but as Daniel Cohen shows, it simply created a different problem: a zero-sum economy where both artists and listeners end up impoverished, while the platform gets rich on behavioural data. What becomes clear is that music streaming was always just the beginning of the brand's ambitions to own all audio consumption.
Future Roots Forever: How LA's DUBLAB Revolutionised Online Community Radio
— Beatportal
Cameron Holbrook chronicles Dublab's two-decade journey from Los Angeles experiment to global network, tracing how the station's "Future Roots Radio" philosophy connected present and past through nonprofit community building. The piece reveals how this early online streaming pioneer nurtured experimental artists like Flying Lotus while spawning affiliate stations from Tokyo to São Paulo.
Tuning Out the Algorithm at WFMU
— Jacobin
America's longest-running freeform radio station operates as a radical alternative to algorithmic music curation. John Erik Hmiel argues that WFMU's listener-supported model demonstrates how such cultural institutions can survive precisely by continuing to prioritise human judgment and artistic expression.
A Year of Loss and Music Discovery
— The Ringer
During 2020's isolation, Micah Peters found refuge in NTS Radio's eclectic programming, from experimental ambient to regional rap to obscure Carpenters demos. His personal account treats the station as both cultural lifeline and source of genuine surprise when other digital listening felt stale and predictable.
Strange Transmissions: The World Of Experimental Radio: Materialism
— The Wire
The history of experimental radio reveals artists consistently working with the medium's material properties rather than against them. Luck and Syedtollan trace this materialist lineage from Konstantin Raudive's séance-like recordings of radio static to contemporary practitioners like Mark Leckey whose NTS Radio collages embrace radio's "grain" and interference as artistic content.
Turn Up the Dial on Palestinian Protest Radio
— The Face
Radio Al Hara represents a radical shift in Palestinian cultural expression, with co-founder Yazan Khalili declaring "I'm no longer interested in changing western people's perspective on our culture— I'm creating intimate conversations by us, for us." Tom Faber explores how this volunteer-run platform broadcasting from Ramallah, Bethlehem, and Amman transforms everything from architecture talks to 72-hour annexation protest broadcasts into acts of self-determination.
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