By Keith Walsh
In an age when the cultures, art and music of the world can be easily consumed from the convenience of our laptops and smartphones, it is a disturbing reality that radio in the United States consistently ignores excellent rock music from developing or otherwise alienated cultures. Case in point: Slovenia. Over the past few years, I’ve had the privilege of becoming friendly with musical artists in and around this European nation, and can vouch for the fact that their music is as carefully constructed and passionate as anything found in the musically dominant nations of the U.S. and Britain. They perform in English in many cases. So what’s going on? Myopia? Xenophobia? Putting Ourselves Firstism?
The case can be made that U.S. radio stations will only promote those acts that their listeners can go and see in concert. Yet why is that? It’s more the case that artists who are already established, and those who have a push from major labels (in an age when some mysterious substitute for Payola calls the shots) are the ones who get airplay.
With the far reach of the World Wide Web at their disposal, why isn’t the reach of U.S. radio stations world wide? I would expect college radio stations to be staffed with curious music fans who would use the internet to discover new music other than that in their zip codes.
Check out the debut tunes from Slovenia’s “Body Says No.”
Previous to forming “Body Says No,” leader Enej Mavsar helmed “Suzi soprano” (lowercase intentional) another Slovenian language rock band. Prior to that, Mavsar dabbled in electronica with his band “Karmakoma.” Karmakoma’s debut album was recorded at the studio of fellow electronica musician Petar Stojanovíc, whose group “Kontradikshn” soon released their debut album, which also demands attention.
A fifth artist from Slovenia that I’ve had the good luck to become acquainted with is “Jinho Jinza,” which, with the reverent attitudes in the U.S. for guitar-based blues, would be a good fit for American ears.
Yet as I write from my laptop — six thousand one hundred and fifty one miles away from the capital of Slovenia, according to Alexa — I am painfully aware that these are only a few examples of music from other nations. But still, if I, with zero budget, can give these five bands attention, why shouldn’t the thousands of radio stations across the U.S., not to mention college radio stations that are free from corporate control, share the music of the many worthy acts from around the globe? I’ll do what I can.
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