a day in the life, part one: radio singapore

I set an alarm clock here every day. My morning hasn’t been dictated by an alarm clock since I was a schoolboy. Someone – I’m guessing the previous occupant of my apartment – set the alarm for 6:45 and tuned the radio to something called Power 98. 6:45 is when I need to get up in the morning, and I was willing to give Power 98 a shot, so I didn’t change a thing.

Now, I want to say something about radio in Singapore. I’ll admit that I haven’t done an exhaustive survey of the dial, but if the standard-issue pop music playing in ubiquitous malls and taxicabs and that which blares from my clock radio are any indication, I can only conclude that the concept of genre is apparently meaningless here. I might wake up to Dido or Poison, the Beach Boys or Metallica. When I step into a cab, I might hear something as obscure as the Scissor Sisters, which could be followed by anything from Michael Jackson to Weird Al lampooning Michael Jackson. At least it gets me out of bed in the morning.

One Reply to “a day in the life, part one: radio singapore”

  1. You’re right — there’s absolutely no concept of genre here as far as the local radio stations are concerned. My take on it is that everyone’s trying to capture the “youth” demographic, so they play a mishmash of whatever it is “young people” are listening to these days. Hence the cacophony you describe.

    I so need an iPod…

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