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.

Soma - Secret Agent

The Soma series of radio stations were really responsible for my interest in internet radio. A friend had their Christmas station playing and I loved the idea of a channel popping up for a season then disappearing once the holidays are done. So yes, expect me to review their Xmas stations as soon as they're up!

But on to one of their permanent channels, Secret Agent. Soma describe it as "The soundtrack for your stylish, mysterious, dangerous life. For Spies and PIs too!" Does that help you any? Me neither, but I can understand why they haven't tried to pigeon hole it into a genre, it doesn't really fit neatly into any category. Bizarrely Reciva classifies it as Easy and Talk? I'm not certain how they come to these conclusions sometimes...

The music mix is at times sublime, blending from an upbeat modern rock number to some laid back 60's lounge via a Sean Connery soundbite. Similar to many Soma channels Secret Agent plays a LOT of instrumental music, but unlike with Illinois Street Lounge here I don't feel it limiting the mix at all. After all this is supposed to the soundtrack of the film, IE music to support the onscreen action of your life... Most of the tracks hover on the edge of recognition, but most of them draw me in and provide interest in the music.

Soma's stations are ad and DJ free, but you do get the very occasional plea for donations, but even these are quick and unobtrusive. Connections either via the PC or Wi-Fi radio is rock solid and other than the occasional rebuffer on the Wi-Fi, trouble free.

Having looked at a number of stations now, I have to say that the front end to Soma.FM's web presence is simple, bordering on the plain. They give you the music and little else. No forum, no music background, no hints about schedules. Their enhanced content in Windows Media Player is good though with links from the 'now playing' tracks and performers to Amazon.

Overall? I love it... It's just listenable too, put it on, leave it on, loud and out there, or quiet and in the background it does the job. The lack of an obvious genre makes it hard to recommend to people, but I say, give it a go if you've ever put on a Dinner Jacket (or tuxedo) and looked in the mirror at yourself with 1 eyebrow raised... Secret Agent gets a very deserved TUNE-IN rating for good music from a good theme.

Radio Paradise

One of the few pages I could find reviewing online radio stations was actually an article in Guardian newspaper. Written by Miranda Sawyer in April 2007, the article is more about the phenomena of internet radio, comparing it with the older style shortwave radio and its plethora of exotic stations. The article does then go on to review a number of stations, culminating in a "best of" list of her favourites. Radio Paradise was described as "A gentle listen, Paradise plays mainstream alternative, old and new, with the occasional twist". Of all the stations she favoured, this sounded most like my taste, so I tuned in...


Dissapointing would be the first thing that springs to mind. I understand that the online radio industry must have come on a fair way in a year, but Radio Paradise just seems dull in comparison to some of the stations I've reviewed so far. Gentle? Yeah I suppose I'd go with that, gentle in the way that the gentle music laps dully against your ears, I guess the occasional twist just got too rare for me. I recognised some of the tracks, but testament to their dullness (how many times can I get that word in?) I can't recall a single one as I write this review. Ok, some new, some old, but truly nothing exciting.

On the connection side of things, there's no issues, they're not new to this so one assumes they've worked out how to balance things there side to serve their listeners.

Ad free, but not beg free, the station exists on donations only and they remind you fairly often (not as often as ad in a commercial show but still fairly noticable).

Their website is fairly well laid out, good links to a forum, pages to buy Radio Paradise branded gubbins but most impressively, a searchable music database. This allows you to "get more info on the artist, share your thoughts about it, see what other listeners think of it, or buy the CD". A couple of clicks to work my way around it and sure enough Divine Comedy's Our Mutual Friend comes up with 6 comments. A REALLY good idea and something I'd like to see catch on.

But perhaps this little foray into the database tells me why the mix isn't working for me. Divine Comedy is one of my favourite bands, but if I was to pick out their best track (as Absent Friends is the ONLY track of theirs Radio Paradise has ever played) I'm not sure I'd pick that one. It's not one of their most catchy or popular tracks, frankly it's not their weirdest either, I just can't see why they picked that track. Expanding this to other artists, are they just playing album filling, also ran tracks?

I didn't study the tracks long enough to decide, but I listened long enough to give them a DROP-OUT rating. Shame as I'd love to see the DB idea appear on other stations, but the music just doesn't keep you coming back for more.

Whole Wheat Radio

Whole Wheat Radio, or WWR for short is a bit different to other stations reviewed so far, with only a few stations under my reviewers belt it's a little too soon to say it's a unique proposition, but its pretty rare

So what is it? Take a look at the URL linked to above for a bit of a clue, the page it links to is a wiki, a user built website. In a nutshell, that's what WWR is, a user built radio station. The site is built by it's community of listeners, tracks and even shows are requested by the listeners, it's so Web2.0 it's even won a web2.0 award...

Ok, so background to one side, what are you actually getting, music wise? It's a little hard to quantify all in all and the closest their website comes to specifying their genre is to say "We tend to appeal to grownups who don't take life too seriously". As weird as it sounds I'd say they're probably spot on, the eclectic mix provided does appeal to someone with a broader appreciation of a number of musical tastes. As I listened, the music swung from light rock to light blues to a bit of country finishing with a samba. Always fairly light and low on the more challenging aspects of these genres, but in no way a bad bit of music. There seems to be little chance of a mainstream bit of music appearing on the playlists as they cover around 3000 independent artists which the seek out via their wiki.

On the technical side, the radio came through clear and strong both via the PC and Wifi radio, I guess that their 6 years of operation from the town of Talkeetna in Alaska has ironed out any of the teething problems newer stations might suffer with. Again a 24 / 365 station with no DJ's and minimal advertising, the station really allows you to get the most music per hour.

The website is HUGELY informative as only a Wiki can be, the Nth detail about artists, songs and even their listeners are available. They even want their listeners to add to their station logo gallery (I did like the one with the moose though..). Standard features such as a chat room and upcoming events are of course available as well as oportunities to buy the independent music you are listening too.

Sometimes I know the overall rating for a station before I start the review, but this one has rather crept up on me as I stepped through the stations features for you. WWR was going to get 1 rating lower, as the music can tend to lack professional polish and end up a little cheezy / lounge singer for constant listening, BUT I love the fact that they're sticking 2 fingers up at mainstream music. So for their musical credentials, their community based content and no issues delivery WWR gets a TURN-ON rating.

BeatlesRadio.com

I thought I knew what I was going to get when I tuned into BeatlesRadio.com, with a little over 200 songs recorded by the fab four I did worry that an entire station to them would get a little repetitive. As it turns out although there is a heavy Beatles presence on the playlist there is also a fair amount of other tracks played. These mostly seem to break down into music of a similar style from the Beatles era, covers of Beatles songs and solo work by the members of the band (although you might be relieved to hear I didn't stumble across any of Ringo's stuff...)


So what's it like? Not too bad to be honest, I like a bit of Beatles every now and then and this deliver if not exactly what it says on the tin, something near enough to it that you're not disspointed. After all with a slightly generous average track time of 4 minutes, you'd have to repeat their entire back catalogue every 14 hours, all Beatles, all the time woul wear thin pretty quickly. They've got a good mix, the music from the era blends in well, as does the solo work. The covers gives the music a bit of a twist just giving a different slant to a song you've known for a while.


Connection wise I never had an issue. They seem to classify themselves as a stream, so there's a slighty odd american who introduces the station everytime you tune in to it, but it only lasts 10 seconds or so and then its straight into the music. BeatlesRadio.com is online online only, so no DJ's as such and only really advertises its own and sister radio stations \ websites. After a week or so listening to commercial stations I must say I find the lack of ads and introductions refreshing.

The supporting website is pretty detailed with a lot of supporting information and services available for the average Beatle fan. Picture and video pages are a nice touch and a forum to provide the community a voice is also available. They also seem to have a good line in merchandise, some connected to the station, some just Beatles memorabilia.

Overall it's a well thought out station, it provides a die hard Beatles fan enough to keep them happy while not boring the rest of us with an endless cycle of the same songs. Backed up well and with no connection issues I give BeatlesRadio.com a TURN-ON rating.

Houndogradio.com

This stations a bit of an oddity in that in ONLY seems to be available on wifi radio's. Searching for the station on google or going straight to the station name, houndogradio.com takes you to a placeholder site. No links to the station, no links to much at all...

But what about the station on wifi radio? It came up under the genre 'Bluegrass', but to my untrained ears, it definitely has a heavy country influence in it's playlists. I better start off by saying that country and western music isn't my normal genre, I don't especially dislike it, but other than the odd Johnny Cash CD I'm not a big listener. Having said that I really enjoyed the music on this station, I really enjoyed the mix of tracks played. The songs were interesting and that little bit different from my normal tastes while being accessible enough not to put me off. I didn't recognise even one artist or track, alhough that's probably no bad thing given my main knowledge of C&W finished at Shania Twain and that fella who had an achy breaky heart. Overall the music was a nice gentle introduction to a new genre.

Connection to the station via wifi radio was simple and relatively problem free. The station dropped every now and then, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Station jingles were relatively short and well intergrated with the music really not interrupting the flow of the station.


All this leaves us it the mystery of the missing website, a shame really as the station should be one to try out, but without a front end on the web I feel they're really missing out on most of their audience.

The disappointing lack of a front end website is just outweighed by the excellent blend of music to give houndogradio.com a TURN-ON rating.

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...

First post, first station - Soma Illinois Street Lounge

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It could be a lack of googling skills, but I can't seem to track down a site detailing or reviewing any of the 10 thousand radio stations available via Reciva on my Wifi radio. I switch it on and there's just TOO MUCH choice. So this is my attempt to fill the gap. I'd love to hear other peoples opinions on the stations I review or stations they know and love. So add comments or drop me a line if you want to post a review.

Soma Illinois Street Lounge. One of the ever changing cluster of SOMA radio stations Illinois Street Lounge offers "Classic bachelor pad, playful exotica and vintage music of tomorrow" acording to the onsite blurb. I wanted to like it, and occasionally I do, there's a little bit of swing, some old crooners and even the odd recognisable golden oldie. Can you tell there's a but coming?

On the downside, the vast majority of playlist seems to be synthesised updates from that era, I guess that's the "music of tomorow" element. Unfortunately this ends up feeling like the hold music from a particularly boring telephone system.


On the technical side, the connections always good, the music seems to go 24:7 with no real DJ interruptions and only the smallest hint of advertising. I say advertising, but really it's a request to support the station with paypal donations I've listened for hours and could only really say I've heard it 2 or 3 times.

Overall I give this station a TURN-ON rating