"The same music is playing on the radio in San Francisco, New York, Washington DC and Annapolis. Everywhere you go there's the same artists and same songs by them, over and over again. At some stations they play the same songs 50 to 60 times a week"
About this Quote
The specificity - cities named like checkpoints, the blunt math of “50 to 60 times a week” - turns a vague irritation into an indictment. Repetition becomes the point. Radio, in this framing, isn’t a mirror reflecting culture; it’s a metronome disciplining it. Familiarity is sold as comfort, but the subtext is coercion: play something often enough and it stops being a choice and starts being ambient reality.
Context matters: John Hall is best known as a musician (and later a politician) who watched local scenes get flattened as corporate playlists spread. The quote sits in the long backlash against “Clear Channel-era” programming, when deregulation and mergers made regional difference economically inconvenient. Even the inclusion of Annapolis - smaller, not a media capital - underscores the creep: it’s not just the big markets; it’s everywhere.
Underneath the gripe is a civic argument. If culture is narrowed to a rotating cast of approved voices, listeners lose more than discovery; they lose the sense that their town, their station, their lived experience might deserve its own soundtrack.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
| Cite | Cite this Quote |
Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Hall, John. (n.d.). The same music is playing on the radio in San Francisco, New York, Washington DC and Annapolis. Everywhere you go there's the same artists and same songs by them, over and over again. At some stations they play the same songs 50 to 60 times a week. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-same-music-is-playing-on-the-radio-in-san-87387/
Chicago Style
Hall, John. "The same music is playing on the radio in San Francisco, New York, Washington DC and Annapolis. Everywhere you go there's the same artists and same songs by them, over and over again. At some stations they play the same songs 50 to 60 times a week." FixQuotes. Accessed February 2, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-same-music-is-playing-on-the-radio-in-san-87387/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The same music is playing on the radio in San Francisco, New York, Washington DC and Annapolis. Everywhere you go there's the same artists and same songs by them, over and over again. At some stations they play the same songs 50 to 60 times a week." FixQuotes, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-same-music-is-playing-on-the-radio-in-san-87387/. Accessed 2 Feb. 2026.
