I like it when robots do the DJing at KURE, not college kids.

I ate some delicious sushi today at Fuji Steakhouse [really good quality/selection for the middle of Iowa]. And on my way home I was digging the college radio. KURE 88.5 FM to be exact. Iowa State University’s college radio station has always been pretty decent, but I’ve never really committed completely mostly because I switch to a CD or my iPod out of embarrassment for the DJ on the radio. They talk too long about nothing, just to hear the sound of their own voice, or blurt out some inside joke only their roommate will understand. That’s not all of them, no, and even if it was there’s also the issue of musical taste.

I can handle a techno song or death-metal track every now and then, but entire shows dedicated to these minute niches of music get old even for lovers of the genre. Today, driving back from sushi heaven, a nice robot from KURE played me his songs, and they were delightful. Now I’m sure that has a lot to do with the songs that were put in my a human to be rotated, but I dug the tiny bits of the robot’s voice cutting in for no more than 5 seconds with: “You are listening to KURE, I am trapped inside a box.” Why not let the humans pick the songs and the robots do the talking. They are much better at it, plus save your human talents for things like talk shows, band interviews, special editions and the very highest quality specialty shows [Jazz, Classical, Techno?] that can air in the wee hours of the night, or maybe just podcast them so the rest of us aren’t subjected to 5 different renditions of the Braveheart Soundtrack techno remix. Better yet, use our institute of “science & technology” to write a program that would read the album, artist and track name with the robot voice so everyone would know who they were listening to by our friendly robot. Go further and take that application and feed it to a database that can be displayed on your website so listeners can find what song they were listening to in case they came in during the middle.

I mean, we all know robots will eventually take over the world with their superior logic but why not enjoy them while we can? College radio is a great thing, not enough people use or know about. It used to be a bastion of college antics and alternatives for co-eds to revel in. Today, it just seems forgotten, in the corner of some unused room in the Memorial Union. Branch out college radio! Take risks! Think of it. KURE’s new slogan…

Picked by humans, spun by robots.