I am a big fan of internet radio. There is something wonderful about finding a station you have never heard before and suddenly discovering music that is completely new to you. And unlike many streaming services, internet radio still has that element of surprise. You don’t really know what is coming next.
Most of the stations I listen to were discovered more or less by accident. SomaFM (https://somafm.com), for example, was one of those discoveries. It is an independent, listener-supported internet radio network with more than 30 channels, many of them focused on music that sits comfortably outside the mainstream.
My favourite station, however, came to me in an even more traditional way: I first heard it on FM radio while in France. It is Radio Pays de Gueret, a local community station broadcasting from the relatively small city of Guéret on 96.5 FM. Its music programming is wonderfully unpredictable. You might hear some old jazz, followed by metal, then a French chanson, some hip-hop and perhaps Caribbean music. On paper, that sounds like a recipe for complete musical chaos. Yet somehow it works. There is a certain logic to the lack of logic, which is probably one of the reasons I keep listening. You can them here: https://www.radiopaysdegueret.fr.
Given how much I like internet radio, I was therefore slightly surprised to discover that I had never heard of Radio Browser (https://www.radio-browser.info/). Radio Browser is basically a community-driven directory of internet radio stations. It is free and provides an open API that is used by all kinds of radio apps, websites and other projects. You can simply search for stations on the website itself, but there is also a list of applications and services that use its database.
And that is where it becomes dangerous. At least if, like me, you enjoy disappearing down little internet rabbit holes. I have already spent quite a bit of time browsing through the stations, apps and projects listed there, and every time I look I seem to find something new and interesting. A new player, an unusual station from somewhere on the other side of the world, or simply another way of exploring radio.
That, for me, is still one of the nicest things about internet radio. It is not necessarily about finding exactly the music you already know you like. It is about hearing something you didn’t know existed.