All the credit in the world goes to LJP for turning me onto ooTunes. We were hanging out in her living room one night after dinner and she asked me if I’d heard it — and more specifically if I knew there was a 24-hour Art Bell radio station out there waiting to be heard. My ears perked up. Of course I wanted the ability to hear Art Bell at any hour of the day. For those of you who don’t live in Los Angeles, the importance of good radio station availability is of great concern in this city. We spend so much of our time in our cars that you can go mad if you keep switching between AM or FM stations and all you hear are commercials. The ability to multiply your available stations tenfold is the reason I first tried SiriusXM radio years ago. Then Howard Stern dialed back his schedule and I gave up on paying the monthly fee. I don’t use a lot of iPhone apps, but most of the ones I use are considered “Entertainment” in the sense that they’re things I can listen to while I’m in my car. Of course I’d pay the nominal fee ($4.99 at the time) for access to thousands of radio stations not just across the country, but across the globe.
And, yeah, I’ll be honest. A lot of times I see a really cool station in some remote part of the world and try to tune in only to receive a connection error. Or it’ll take way too long to buffer while switching between my favorite stations. But at the end of the day, I think the app is an invaluable resource and something of a necessity in a city like LA where commutes and traffic snarls can dominate one’s life.
It’s not a flawless app, but it’s well worth the cost. That said, here are some of my favorite stations to tune into. You’ll notice a lot of them are the types of things you might hear on one of those “Radio Jakarta” albums that are produced by record labels who will go unnamed because they like to send cease and desist letters to blog who try to promote them. Funny, I don’t see them sending checks to the artists who appear on the radio stations in places like Jakarta for the ability to distribute and sell their music…
Ahem!
The Ten Best ooTunes Radio Stations
Honorable Mention:
- Rehab FM; Tripoli, Libya
- 93.3FM Holy Koran Station; Kuwait City, Kuwait
- 102.1FM Hala FM; Amman, Jordan
10. 95.0FM Luk Thung Luktung Mahanakorn; Bangkok, Thailand – You’ll hear everything on this station from pop to rock (which sounds like the weirdest 80s synthy new wave you could imagine, only sung in a different language) and talk here. It’s a frequently heard “favorite” because I never know what I’m going to hear when I turn it on. Crazy Van Halen-ish guitar wizardry or traditional Thai music. There’s always something weird to soak in.
09. Dakar Musique; Dakar, Senegal – I’m pretty sure this is an online radio station, but it’s one of the only ones that connects regularly without problems so if it’s as close as I can get to wolof music I’m happy to hear it. There are plenty of talk radio stations from Senegal available on the app, but if I don’t understand what they’re saying (I only know about 10 phrases) it can get boring just listening to people talk at each other. This station seems to play continuous music, and I haven’t had to sit through too much bad electronic music. You’d be surprised how many stations in tiny remote countries across the globe only play crazy techno music.
08. 101.0FM FM101; Islamabad, Pakistan – This station is pretty incredible. I guess it services a pretty wide area, as it’s described as “government radio” that reaches Peshawar, Quetta, Faisalabad, Sialkot, Hyderabad, Multan, Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi. Some of the ads are in English. Most of the music is great traditional pop music from the region. Highly recommended. There’s also an FM station from the same region that is in English, so it’s a good way to get news from the area that is understandable to westerners. Just now I’m listening to a story about a “terrorist” being shot dead by police today. Who knew!?
07. 100.7 FM Ch 1; Kigali, Rwanda – This one’s just fucking weird because the station doesn’t always come in clearly and for some reason it plays a lot of old school American doo-wop and vocal music, but then the bumpers are always in the most soothing voice speaking…whatever they speak in Rwanda…you could ever imagine. It makes for a great listen because you can hear some classic, soulful tunes and then you’re reminded that this is what they listen to in a very small region of central Africa. That’s what I love about ooTunes. Shit like this.
06. FM Rainbow 101.4; Chennai, India – This one tends to change around a lot. On Thursday morning it was really awesome Indian pop music that I cranked while I was driving back east across the city. Twenty or thirty minutes ago it sounded more like news/talk. I was hoping for more local Indian radio stations from places like Jaipur and Pushkar — the kind of stuff I heard in cabs when I was visiting in 2011 — but the options are slim here.
05. 102.7FM Naija FM “Na We Radio”; Lagos, Nigeria – It’s mostly Nigerian hip hop (which, don’t lie, is kind of awesome) and a bit of talk and local news from the region. If none of that sounds awesome to you, you probably shouldn’t download ooTunes. I mean…where else are you going to hear live broadcasts from fucking NIGERIA? What’s more, there’s like ten other stations from the region that can provide more entertainemnt. There’s a sports station (92.8FM in Enugu), a “Cool FM” station (95.9 in Port Harcourt) and a few others.
04. 102.0FM Sout Al Rayyan; Doha, Qatar – There are a lot of stations from western Asia that sound similar, and many of them are “favorited” on the app so that I can listen to them at a later date. Right now I’m listening to a live performance by a female singer that, again, is right up my alley when it comes to Middle-Eastern/West Asian music. Another winner is…
03. 99.0FM Sout Al Khaleej; Muscat, Oman – It’s very, very similar to the station ranked just above (the similarly-named one) this. It’s more Arabic music. It’s also available in Doha, Qatar as well as Manama, Bahrain and Abu Dhabi.
02. 102.0FM Radio Tamor 102 MHz; Taplejung, Nepal – Yeah dude, Nepali Asian music. Awesome.
01. U7 The Very Best Of Art Bell – This was the first “favorite” station I programmed (WFAN 660AM NYC was the second) and it’s the one I listen to the most. I’ve never heard a repeat show and I’ve had this app for…months. I might be approaching a year, actually. And there are two Art Bell stations. I’ve never even tried to listen to the other one because I haven’t had any problems with the connection or the content. Most of the shows they broadcast are commercial free. Even when they have commercials, it’s hilarious shit from the ’90s I remember hearing when I would fall asleep listening to C2CAM. It’s awesome. This station alone is worth the cost of the app. The other dozen or two dozen stations I listen to on a regular basis? That’s just icing on the cake.
Motion Sickness Of Time Travel – Little Green Bottle [MP3]
