Student radio forever

I still feel like a total perv when I get into the pop music produced by young female musicians - while I am very much not the target audience for it, I can't help it if they keep making some stonking music. Our household has been listening to a lot of Phoebe Bridgers lately.

I also feel similarly awkward when I listen to student radio too much, but they also give me great music to listen to, and I can't do much about that either.

The main reason I end up listening to so much of the local student radio station is the very dumbest reason in the world. I only listen to the radio while driving around town, and Auckland University's BFM is the only radio station that plays music at the top of the hour, and I get unheathily angry at the ads all the other stations are playing (I even have a oddly visceral reaction to the way every ad ends with somebody saying 'tees and cees applies', as if that is just so much cooler than saying 'terms and conditions').

And every other radio station (apart from my beloved public broadcaster, if I'm in the mood for news), fills the airwaves with their awful braying commercials, except for the students, and I just end up listening to them by default.

But I also still like the shabby nature of student radio. I never really went to university, but I still adore the drawl of the young student announcer, the bored monotone is quite relaxing compared to the hyperactivity of the commercial radio DJs.

And, most of all, it's where I hear the new music that I would never hear anywhere else. All the hip young things and the forgotten legends. There is always a part of me that craves the new sound, the tune that isn't like anything else in the world, and the student radio delivers it up every single day.

And then there are the shows focused on hardcore dub, or old school reggae, or eternal old country tunes, or thrash metal. Old beats and archaic sounds that are as fresh as anything else produced in 2026, because they are new to me, and not like anything else on the airwaves. I still feel old while I listen to them, but not that old.