
Originally Posted by
allenm
This message is for Earle Bailey and the rest of the executive staff at XMS:
Please remove Jim Ladd from Deep Tracks. For the musically educated, Jim Ladd's superficial, thinly-veiled and commercially sold-out programming has, in my opinion, ruined the weekday evening timeslot on Deep Tracks. As a musician with over thirty years' experience on top of a decade of formal musical training, I must say that Jim Ladd has to be one of the (musically) worst-educated DJs I've ever heard. His playlist is neither "Free-Form" nor deep (as this great channel implies in its name, has successfully delivered for over a decade, and continues to deliver through the other highly-qualified DJs that do such an outstanding job of delivering historically relevant musical programmming). As one who grew up musically in the era of true commercially-independent progressive rock radio, Jim's claim to anything approaching a "free form" format insults my intelligence. To the contrary, his programming smacks of top-100 payola, and patiently listening to his program (with the intent of giving the man the benefit of the doubt) lead one to the conclusion that his selection of music is fundamentally rooted in what he's heard played on other top-100 stations and finds in the bins of franchise record stores with a market demographic of aging customers whose musical growth ended before age 18. He can identify obvious genius such as Eric Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, The Beatles and other obvious superstars but he apparently has no understanding of the music which influenced them or even see beyond their top-100 hits into the music that defines them at their deepest levels. It's apparent he's vaguely aware that artists such as Little Feat, J.J. Cale, The Band, Delbert McClinton and others are popular among musicians and real music people for some reason, but because he apparently he needs someone to tell him if a particular piece of music is important or not, he's unable to exercise professional judgement and expand his programming beyond the superficial. I recognize that there are those who may feel some nostalgia toward Jim, and he might be able to make a valuble contribution on another channel such as 70's On 7 or 80's On 8 or some other channel that specializes in the superficial/pop hits of an era, but he does not belong on Deep Tracks. Please return the weekday evening slot to the true professionals in this format that you've had on staff for so many years, such as yourself, Meg Griffin, Dan Neer, & Michael Tierson. They have the knowledge, taste, respect and humility that make Deep Tracks the entertaining and educational station that the fans pay for. Until you do, I have no intelligent option than to tune away the moment his show begins. Maybe XMS could give Jim his own channel - you could call it "Superficial Tracks with Jim Ladd".