Listen to the Radio

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I have a crazy, crazy affection for love songs in Spanish.

Like country ballads, love songs in Spanish are often bad, and for all the same reasons: the lyrics teeter on the line between the bad-luck-streak-believable and the totally hyperbolic. The barely contained emotion tremors in the overwrought note that’s held just a little too long. The harmonies are predictable. I know all this, but still…

Here in Mexico City, the musical backdrop of my days is the local love song station. Every respectable town in Latin America has such a station, preferably with at least one segment a day that invites guests–mostly women–to call in, share their tales of woe, ask for some pithy advice from a DJ who’s surely not qualified to serve as an ad hoc psychologist, and then wait for a song hand-selected either to reflect the caller’s own pain or inspire her way out of it.

My justification for listening to this station is that I can only tolerate reggaeton in small doses, I left big-hair heavy metal music behind in late junior high school, and I’m not a big fan of rancheras. I listen to the same track of sappy songs play over and over day and night without tiring of their drama. And in between my current favorites– “Tu Recuerdo” by Ricky Martin (I know, I know) and La Mari, and ”Dimelo” by Enrique Iglesias –I begin to feel my way into being a local. Is the DJ is giving instructions for stretching and taking deep breaths? It must be 3 PM. Is the DJ directing his comments to drivers? Must be rush hour. “It’s raining outside,” the deep, fatherly voice says softly. “Drive carefully; respect your life and one another.” I listen as the car horns on my street beep, many of them elaborated with their own customized tunes. At 7 PM, it’s Luis Miguel hour– again (there’s also a Luis Miguel hour at 9 AM)–and though I’m no Luis Miguel fan, I begin to understand, slowly, why he’s so important and loved in Mexico.

In the U.S., I think, we don’t have a relationship with the radio like people in many other countries do. As ipods and downloadable music become ever more pervasive, who needs the radio? It’s even hard to argue for local stations anymore… they’re quickly disappearing as big media buys them all up, syndicates programs, and leaves listeners in the dark about what’s happening in their own back yards.

Around the world, however, radios have been critical instruments not just for the diffusion of music, but also for society building–and destructing. Radios have been used for spreading ideology and propaganda, faith, and have even incited entire communities to take up arms against one another in genocidal ”ethnic cleansing” movements. For better or worse, there’s little that makes a place more local than its music and its radio culture. It’s easy to forget that in the United States, where you’ll hear the same canned tunes and ads as you criss-cross from one state to another, but that’s all I have time for now….it’s Luis Miguel hour.

Radio Photo: YlvaS (creative commons)

Luis Miguel Photo: Jezabell Suad (creative commons)