I recently went to a concert by an artist I really enjoy. I walked away disappointed.

Compare that to the first concert I went to after COVID. This was a group I had never seen before and they performed only covers from another era. The show was an absolute blast.

You might be thinking that the difference was the music. Nope, both concerts featured music I know and enjoy.

The difference is what happened BETWEEN the songs.

The first concert had very little interaction with the audience, few stories about the music, and no anecdotes about the artist’s career path or relationships. (He is related to someone famous even.)

The second concert was full of stories about their passion for the music they covered, how they learned the complex arrangements with few charts available, and the difficulty of performing in something other than their native language.

What’s my point?

Too many stations sound like little more than the sequencing of one element into another into another. The stuff between the songs matters, especially if a concert is worth remembering or a radio station is worth caring about.