I thought I'd post this on a song which gets played a lot, and this one seems to fit the bill--


Does anybody know what were the very first songs played here at RP? I'd love to go back and read some embryonic comments of 13+ years ago. I only found this station after reading this TIME magazine article from April 2004:

>>Bill and Rebecca Goldsmith are making a living from an idea that would probably get you laughed out of business school: running an Internet radio station commercial free. From their home in Paradise, Calif., in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, they operate Radioparadise.com a format-busting station that spins a tasteful mix of music ranging from the Beatles to Norah Jones to the Strokes. Fewer than 5,000 listeners tune in during peak times, but fans like it so much, they sent the couple $120,000 in contributions last year, covering the cost of bandwidth, song royalties and other expenses and leaving enough to support a "comfortable lifestyle," says Bill Goldsmith, who quit a 30-year career in FM radio to run and DJ his homegrown version.

If you can't bear another spin of Britney Spears, you're one of the reasons that stations like Radioparadise are beginning to prosper and investors are again flocking to another alternative to the AM/FM dial: satellite radio. After years of unmet promise, online stations, along with satellite offerings like Sirius and XM Satellite Radio, are building audiences even as regular radio struggles through a decade-long slump (time spent listening is down 14% since 1994, according to the ratings firm Arbitron). Critics say industry consolidation has turned AM/FM stations into McRadio: nationally uniform, repetitive and clogged more than ever with ads and promos. But scores of high-quality alternatives are now competing for your ears (and dollars).

Just a few years ago, online radio heads were mainly tech geeks willing to put up with patchy, low-quality sound. These days about 19 million people listen to online radio at least once a week, up from 7 million in 2000, according to Arbitron. Online listenership is growing at an average 43% a year as more people get broadband connections at home and tune in for content that's unavailable or in short supply on commercial stations, from blues to folk to Al Franken's new liberal Air America network, which is broadcast in just a few markets on the AM/FM dial but was streamed 2 million times in its first week, according to its exclusive webcaster, RealNetworks. "People are fed up with terrestrial radio," says Dave Goldberg, who oversees Yahoo's music site and radio network, Launchcast, which draws 1 million listeners a week.

For now, it's the satellite guys, together claiming around 2 million subscribers, who are drawing Wall Street's attention. Though their stock prices had plummeted over concerns that they might run out of cash, their shares have soared in the past year. XM is up 379%; Sirius, 491%. Analyst April Horace of Janco Partners in Denver predicts that within five years 16 million Americans will be listening to satellite radio. She says the market would explode if a popular shock jock like Howard Stern were to defect with his 15 million listeners, a prospect that looked more likely last week after six traditional stations dropped his show following an FCC proposal to fine their corporate parent, Clear Channel Communications, $495,000 for airing his "indecent" content.

Satellite broadcasters use a pay-radio model, beaming dozens of channels coast to coast commercial free, with original programming such as comedy and kids' shows. Financially backed in part by automakers, the satellite firms charge between $10 and $13 a month, mainly targeting car-radio users. Increasingly, though, listeners are buying portable tuners for their homes. To neutralize a key AM/FM advantage, both satellite broadcasters have started to provide traffic and weather updates in select markets.

So far, digital radio's growth isn't hurting big radio empires such as Clear Channel. With 1,213 stations and roughly a 30% ratings share in markets such as Phoenix, Ariz., and Milwaukee, Wis., Clear Channel had a record 2003: revenues of $8.9 billion and a net income of $1.1 billion. But listeners are clearly spending less time with terrestrial radio. One cause may simply be more media competition, from DVDs to video games to an expanding universe of digital TV. But critics of the radio industry say consolidation is partly to blame too. They claim Clear Channel and other big groups have ruined the airwaves by homogenizing song lists, politicizing the dial with conservative talk and sucking out local flavor with voice-tracking technology, which enables DJs to sound like local talent even if they're a thousand miles away. Clear Channel contends that its cost-cutting measures have saved hundreds of stations from bankruptcy and that it's the programming's popularity, reflected in ratings, that ultimately drives the business.

Nonetheless, teenagers and young adults are increasingly going online to find new music (not just file-sharing networks), particularly alternative content that rarely gets airplay on the commercial FM dial. About 13% of Americans ages 12 to 24 now listen to online radio on a weekly basis, up from 6% of that age group in 2001, according to Edison Media Research/Arbitron. With 185 stations, AOL's radio network, which, like TIME, is part of Time Warner, draws a weekly listenership of 1.5 million (by that measure, Arbitron notes, it's the nation's largest online network). Advertising remains tiny, but that may change. Ronning Lipset, an upstart Internet-radio ad firm in New York City, recently started packaging AOL, Live365.com MSN and Yahoo into a kind of national network, which has a combined audience of at least 250,000 listeners in a quarter hour, the minimum needed to appeal to national-media planners. The firm says the networks will start running audio spots from national advertisers in May.

For now the AM/FM industry doesn't seem too concerned. Arbitron estimates that 228 million Americans ages 12 and up still listen to broadcast radio weekly, and radio remains the top broadcast medium after TV for advertisers who want to reach a mass market. Radio ad sales in Arbitron markets are forecast to rise 5.5% this year, to $14 billion, according to BIA Financial Network, a media consultancy in Chantilly, Va. Yet as more consumers tune to stations like Radioparadise, those numbers could slip. Goldsmith's thoughtful playlists are organized by musical theme, moving from, say, a bluesy Tracy Chapman tune to a Latin-blues Carlos Santana track to a rock-blues number by the Hellecasters. He heeds listener feedback and says the only thing he really cares about is "playing good music," regardless of whether it's a hot single being pitched by a promoter or a classic. That's why his fans are pulling out their wallets to support him.

oh my ... your killing me,how do you guys come up with this wave? I dont care im riddin it thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ho man, what a fantastic, timeless piece. Beefy be the bass. And Paul always looked so childlike, how can that face make that thump?

Of course, George's part is nothing less than the very top of musicianship here. He has a way of reaching in and grabbing my heart, and giving it a good squeeze....

Extremely engaging quality from the very beginning chords. Timely too, in brilliant sunlight just "noticed the floor still needs sweeping". Has to wait 'til guitar finishes weeping, Thank you Radio Paradise. :)

marvelous... love this song... love this whole album...

Beethoven and then the Beatles. Two 10's, one after the other. I love RP.

Everybody in my church loves this song... and this entire album...

White Album – the best rock/pop album ever.

Hannio wrote:
Seriously?

ckcotton wrote:

Your grammar.

MojoJojo wrote:
Really?

Your CRAZY!

Three 9+ songs in a row....Bill is not messing around this morning!

lemmoth wrote:

I be me... hope you are having a marvelous time right this moment...

love this song...

Lazarus wrote:

Me thinks a certain former member, may be a member again..................C'mon Lazarus

I wish this was like reddit so I could upvote your comment.

ambrebalte wrote:
I wish this was like reddit so I could upvote your comment.

The first Beatles I listened too.
I was 13. Just moved to a place I didn't like, a village, where people were looking at us "from the suburbs", as perfect strangers. I just lost all my friends, never felt that alone before, outcast. And there was this music teacher who seemed so softly sad, who decided that instead of the usual "flatitudes" we would be better off discovering sounds we could relate to, giving us a good reason to study English simultaneously.
I don't remember if it was just after noon or later, if it was in the winter or in the summer. But I clearly see and feel the sudden suspension of breathes. Never were we so calm, even long after the music finished. Moments of grace last.
I don't remember any other moments in my teen age when we were so moved that we didn't even think about hiding it. It was beyond music, a whole state of mind, like to touch a legend, to be a part of the myth. In this small French village in the deep countryside, beginning of the 70s'.

Bat wrote:
Personally I wouldn't edit anything, and I definitely wasn't bored, despite the running time. Perhaps they could keep the existing film as a "Director's Cut" and release a shorter version as an option.

While my ears gently bleed.

Wow
still
timeless