Fourth Street Radio

This one will be short and sweet, you'll see why soon...

Again, another station picked out of the thousands cos it's name lept out at me while scrolling through on my Wi-Fi radio. In my effort to avoid commercial stations I try to skip anything with FM or a frequency number anywhere near it.

Fourth St radio was tucked away in the RnB genre, but I wanted a bit of a change and even though it's not a style I'm immediately drawn to, I like to give these things a go. I guess this was part of the problem, as a genre I've only dipped into, I thought this would strech my musical tastes. All I really got was RnB pop from the last 20 years, some I'd heard before, but most I hadn't. I get the feeling the reason the unknown track hadn't been heard was less to do with there niche value and more to do with them being not vey good.
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And here's where the review comes to a screaching halt. Despite advertising there site on there shows, I can find no online presence for them. Someone also needs to have a word about domain names, I mean if you're going to have a domain name primarily read out to people, why choose one which has at least four legitimate ways of spelling it (fourth, 4th, Street & St). Anyway I couldn't find a website under any combination and google gave me no hint either.

So for fairly drab lack lustre music and no site at all, Fourth Street Radio gets a big fat DROP-IT rating.

Ballroom Glitz

Have you ever started something and almost immediately think why have I done this? Tuning in to Ballroom Glitz was a little like this. It started with good intentions, I’ve watched that Aussie classic Strictly Ballroom, I’ve watched several series of the BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing, the station will be a radio version of these surely?

Sadly no, as I enjoyed my other forays into this activity. Ballroom Glitz describes itself as “a variety radio show” and a “celebration of Ballroom and the Music of Dance”. I’m just not convinced it does it very well, or perhaps ballroom just isn’t meant for the radio?

The music was a bit of an eclectic mix, a little bit of disco, some old time swing, a little latin here or there. I’ll be honest, on paper this sounds pretty good to me, a hotch potch of different styles means I don’t have time to get bored, but somehow it just doesn’t gel. The disco isn’t that good and the mix doesn’t seem to flow, it’s as if someone’s selected the appropriate genre’s, then hit the random button. Individual tracks of interest pop up, but appear in a sea of mediocrity, rather diluting the effect.

So, the music is more miss than hit, what about the rest the technical side? Starting with the good, the Wi-Fi connection is strong, with very few ‘buffering’ pauses. The quality of the music does seem to differ, but that may be due to the age / availability of some of the older tracks. There is reasonably high level of self promotion, bordering on the intrusive at times, but the station does have active DJ’s to support, so maybe they need the extra cash? Now to the bad… To listen via your PC you have to sign up to their site. I don’t like this for places like Live365, but at least they are a collection of stations.

This idea really annoys me, not just because it inconvenienced me, I had to go via reciva’s site, but because it could really damage internet radio if everybody started to do it… I don’t really get it either, why make it harder for listeners to enjoy your station? I’m sure they’d say it was about keeping in touch with there listeners, but it feels more like a data gathering exercise.

So anyway, the bottom line… Ballroom Glitz has annoyed me on at least 2 fronts and we the listeners should actively discourage the ‘sign up to listen’ crowd.. For these reasons I give it a dismal DROP-IT rating. I liked the musical concept though, is there any other station that does it better?

Foxy \ Jewel??

I originally tuned into this one on my Wi-Fi radio, where it's named Foxy, something that left me a little lost when I tried to track it down online. It seems Foxy 88.5fm changed it's name over a year ago to Jewel (or "The Jewel of the dial", do you see what they did there...)

Ok, I know I said no more local radio stations, but they TRICKED me with there oh so snazzy single word name, lack of the strange letters US and Canadian stations seem to be made up of and not even a hint of an FM in their name... It was a while before I worked it out and by that time I was in too deep.

So anyway, what's Foxy like? Well like there name, the musics a bit stuck in the past. If I can liken it to a cheap compilation albums, and I think it's a fair analogy , this one would be titled "Second Love". Most of the content seems to be love based pop from a range of era's with a fairly high focus on rubbish covers. It's not pretty, there are some recognisable voices and some recognisable songs, but rarely together on the same track. For instance, Neil Diamond - a good singer, some great songs under his belt. The way you look tonight, a great song, from a great era. Neil Diamond singing The way you look tonight... just doesn't work...

On the technical side, the connections good from both Wi-Fi and PC is good, no issues / dropouts. For the most part the DJ keeps the chatter to the minimum only really coming in every 3-4 songs. again the same with the ads. Although these almost make the station worth listening too, they're the equivelant of shopping TV in their content (Tummy tuck jeans? Sleep apnia?)

The Site is minimilist, a link to listen to the radio and half a dozen other links to things like a gallery or local traffic information. Definitely nothing to write home about.

Even the amusing adverts (do YOU know how much waste your bowel retains without wonder clear powder?) can't save this station from an overall rating of DROP-IT. It's just too bland, it times it feels like they've gone out of their way to pick dull tracks and soporific voiced DJ's. Unless getting to sleep really IS a problem for you, avoid.

0180's Lost Dance Treasures

This one popped up on my 'You might like this' list on Reciva, the site that supplies all the listings to my wifi radio. I'm not a huge fan of the site, it's exceptionally slow and really doesn't make finding a good online radio station that much easier, but I thought I'd give there recomendations a go.

0180s.com has a collection of channels, each with a slight different 80's theme from Dancefloor to Power Rock Ballards they cover a range of styles and tastes. As I was recommended Lost Dance Treasures, it was here I started.


I'll come straight out with it, I'm not a fan, neither was anyone within listening distance, in some cases, the lost need to stay lost... The music,as you'd expect from the station logo, is heavily 80's orientated, so at times there was a pleasant tingle of nostalgia. Unfortunately the tracks chosen more often led to a shudder of the 'I'd forgotten how bad that was' variety. I'm also not 100% sure they've got their themes right, from some soft rock to the Petshop Boys to Aciiiiiid to The B52's Rock Lobster. The consistency / flow of the music didn't really get going.

This leads me to possibly the biggest problem, in between EVERY track there's a 10-20 second pause. No station ID, just dead air. I guess it could be just scarily regular connection problems but it makes hard listening to whatever the reason.

0180s.com's website is very simple, it provides access to it's stations, it's sister sites (like 0170s.com, 01Jazz.com & 01Urban.com to name a few) and copious amounts of advertising. The nearest we get to some kind of extended service is a link to buy tracks heard on the radio.


Overall Lost Dance Treasures gets a DROP-IT rating for poor music, poor connections and a poor website. I originally gave this the next rating up, on the grounds that 80's music is popular, but I can't believe there's not a better 80's station out there, possibly one of 0180s.com's other channels...