What is the Best of Digital Radio?

May 22, 2014 3:25 AM

Having just bought a new fandangled bluetooth speaker, I must know. What are the best, most diverse digital radio stations in the world for my listening pleasure?

As much as I love ABCJazz (Australia), we need something more to listen to while loafing. Our music tastes run from jazz to funk to folk to indie to electronic to house to dance to hip hop. Also interested in discussions on art or movies, politics and culture. Comedy.

I might be looking for the Metafilter of digital radio. Is it out there?

posted by arha to Society & Culture (13 answers total)

Best answer: BBC 6 Music - fairly indie but some greater variety at weekends and evenings, including "world" and jazz. Iggy Pop and Jarvis Cocker are two of their occasional guest DJs, for example
posted by Hugobaron at 3:45 AM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: soma.fm! I especially love Secret Agent. Studio Brussel is pretty good too, if you don't mind your DJs speaking Dutch.
posted by neushoorn at 3:55 AM on May 22, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: BBC Radio 4, 4 Extra and the World Service would be top of my list for speech/drama/comedy/current affairs.
posted by humph at 4:11 AM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Obligatory WFMU. Actual listener-supported independent community radio.
posted by Mothlight at 5:00 AM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

CBC Radio 2 is pretty good although they bunch up the genre's into specific time slots during the week.
posted by Poldo at 5:01 AM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

I love Radio Paradise. It's based out of California, so it might not meet the geographical requirement, but they certainly play their share of diverse, international music.
posted by lalunamel at 6:14 AM on May 22, 2014 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I really like Fip. It's a French radio station that plays a wide mix of music more or less continuously without advertising or speech, only stopping for news headlines once an hour.
posted by Richard Holden at 6:18 AM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: WWOZ is jazz, blues, etc. public radio station out of New Orleans with lots of well-curated variety. (And you know NOLA is a jazz/blues city when it takes 10 minutes to run though each day's concert calendar.)
posted by paper chromatographologist at 6:19 AM on May 22, 2014 [2 favorites]

Following-up on Richard Holden's post, here some discussion about FIP radio.
posted by alex1965 at 8:43 AM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Rdio

Discover your next favorite song with Rdio, a social jukebox with over 20 million songs
posted by Kruger5 at 8:56 AM on May 22, 2014

Radio Krimi out of Paris plays a wide variety of classic soul, classic r&b, afro, caribbean and other funky grooves. David Byrne curates a few hours of music that changes each month. London's Resonance FM is a serious arts station.
posted by conrad53 at 9:52 AM on May 22, 2014 [1 favorite]

Songza...songza...songza. Songza

They have an app as well as a website. Zillions of Genres of music, as well as playlists that they produce for each day/occasion. I have no relationship with them, but whenever we have a dinner party, they play on my tablet through my stereo. One more thing, I don't think that I've ever heard a verbal announcement on Songza.
posted by mbarryf at 5:44 AM on May 23, 2014 [1 favorite]

Bob's Ska Radio. Dancehall and rocksteady to two-tone and ska-punk. From Desmond Dekker to The Selecter to Operation Ivy - all the ska, all the time.

deepmix.ru (link is to deepmix.eu, the English version) - sweet minimal/downbeat out of Moscow. They have a Soundcloud page that you can download sets from as well, for free.

Soma.fm's been mentioned, so I'm seconding that. They have streams for every mood.
posted by Zack_Replica at 10:54 PM on May 23, 2014