• AARP Jukebox
  • Tour the Country with Tony Bennett
  • What is your music IQ?

More Music

Music

This blogger, Richard Gehr, is not an employee of AARP. The opinions expressed in the blog are not necessarily the opinions of AARP and AARP assumes no liability for the content posted by Mr. Gehr or any other participant

Richard Gehr | April 05, 2007

0 Comments

Got a sec? Far more intriguing in concept than in execution so far, Radio SASS aims to return to the halcyon days of two-minute radio hits by editing and squeezing tracks down to a snappy 90 seconds because, really, who needs to hear any more? As they put it in their manifesto:

"Today's culture moves at a breakneck, multi-tasking, fast-forward pace. The time is right for a new dynamic way to experience radio. Enter, Radio SASS. This new protocol changes radio history in several positive ways. Listeners get more music, and more variety. Recording artists get 3x the airplay and exposure. Records labels get increased spins, increased sales. Radio gets a new sound."

As the Benny Hill-like character Ricky Gervais portrays in "Extras" would put it: "Is he having a laugh? Is he having a laugh?" Well, probably. But there's more:

"Radio SASS (Short Attention Span System) takes the playlist and musically condenses songs to their essence. Through time compression, you get the memorable heart of each song, with an average length of approximately two minutes with NO self indulgent guitar solos, NO long intros, NO repetition of choruses again and again. Radio returns to the snappy song length of the 1960s."

So how does it sound? With only an hour of radio on their site so far, you'd think it might be hard to tell. But it isn't. Even at ninety seconds a pop, songs like Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)," Carole King's "I Feel the Earth Move," and the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" wore out their welcome ages ago. And of course that's the point.

I learned of Radio SASS from Stuck Between Stations, a guiltlessly adult music blog whose biggest hit to date is Roger Moore's great rant about how global warming is altering the landscape and threatening the "world's music supply": "British musicians fear that warming trends threaten the supply of angst, guilt and irony, the three pillars of British musical expression, and arguably of all Anglo-Saxon culture." Just another argument for shorter songs: to conserve energy.

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Disclaimer: You are fully responsible for the content that you post, and AARP assumes no responsibility for the messages or content of others. We also reserve the right to remove or edit postings because of length or other reasons in our sole discretion. Please do not post commercial messages. Please behave respectfully to other members of this blog community. We reserve the right to delete or edit comments that may be inflammatory, abusive, off-topic, obscene, sexually explicit, use excessive foul language, are of a personal nature, or are otherwise inappropriate. You agree that AARP, its affiliates and sublicensees can use your comment and derivative works based on your comment on this blog and in any other media. Please do not post personal contact information and do not impersonate other members of this blog community or anyone else. We reserve the right to change these rules at any time.