Over the last few decades, music and technology have been rapidly evolving together. However, even as sounds are explored and technology advances, originality and uniqueness have been compromised. Mainstream artists have taken hold of the charts, making it harder for independent and upcoming artists to be discovered. The music industry has become a sort of catch-22: an artist can’t become popular without a hit, but that artist can’t get a hit without being popular. Label executives and producers are apprehensive about taking risks with new artists and artists that are exploring different sounds. Instead, they rely on the artists who’ve already made it big.

Research has proven that pop music is actually beginning to sound the same— and this is inevitable. With only so many possible notes and tones that can be used when composing music, it’s no wonder that songs are starting to reflect each other. It’s nearly impossible not to be influenced by an already existing tune or melody. Even so, when presented with an incredibly diverse world of music, it’s the same kind of music that’s played over and over on radio stations; the same “Top 40” and the same “Today’s Top Hits” playlists that are the most popular on applications like Spotify and Pandora. Even when listeners are offered an endless selection of tracks—more so than ever— they choose to support the artists that have already been established as mainstream, the ones they’re familiar with.

This is where “Underground Radio” comes in: a radio station dedicated to surfacing the artists that have been pushed aside by the mainstream music. So many radio stations exist, and yet so many play the same repetitive loop of songs that the stations think people want to listen to. Underground Radio focuses on the listeners and the music they respond to, whether in a positive or negative way. Here, the less well-known and local artists get to have their songs played to an audience that is open to new sounds. Every time a song is played, listeners get to vote on the website or call in and voice their opinion. At Underground Radio, it’s less about the commercialization— it’s about what the people really want to hear.

I’ve created a website for the radio station (with our classroom number as a fake frequency…) that includes a poll that would be updated for every new song that’s played, as well as a slideshow of “Recently Played” songs so listeners can find the songs they liked. Although I haven’t created it, in addition to this website there’d be an Instagram that posts snippets of songs played along with their album cover to help promote the radio station as well as the artist. There would also be a Facebook page for the station that provided a link to the website.