Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Concrete bland

There's a Philadelphia radio station (headquartered in the same Bala Cynwyd office building as my accountant) that has started using a recorded female voice to announce the titles and artists of the songs they play:

"Culture Club. Do You Really Want to Hurt Me."

"Hall and Oates. You Make My Dreams Come True."

"Modern English. Melt With You."

Her robotic, almost narcotized tone conveys about as much emotion as the recorded voice that tells you to press 1 on an automated voice-mail system. It's really jarring and, these days, unnecessary: if you're curious about a song title or who sings it, and it doesn't show up on your car's video screen, just do an online search for a couple of words in the lyrics. Piece of cake.
Then again, what do I know? The station honchos may have done extensive focus-group research and found that the robo-announcer was the top choice among their favored demographic.

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