3 Ways Radio Garden is More Than a Radio Streaming Site

One of the very first mediums of electronic entertainment — Radio — is still as frequently visited by most of us alike, and what’s better when you can even access radio services from the comfort of your web browser! Enter Radio Garden, the solution to your radio woes.

Using this service you can tune into numerous radio stations from all over the world and that too from the comfort of your room.

The website developed by Studio Puckey & Moniker, displays the entire earth, which can be rotated using your mouse to find radio stations indicated by small green dots.

You can click on a particular dot to access all the available radio stations in that region.

Not only live radio, but the interface also has options to listen to recordings made in the history, jingles produced by various radio stations worldwide, and stories of people from around the world who’ve been helped by trans-national radio services.

Live Radio

You can listen to radio stations from across the globe. Be it BBC London, Radio City in Mumbai or FM91 from Karachi, among numerous others from locations far.

The Live Radio section of the website homes multitudes of radio stations from different parts of the world, but is dominated by radio signals from Europe and North America.

The service has been launched quite recently, and in all probability, as the popularity in a certain area grows, the developers will add more stations to the already exhaustive list.

Explore what is happening in the world of radio right now with the website’s live radio panel. You can travel through music from different languages and multiple genres, without the worry of borders — exactly how radio was supposed to be — to exchange culture cross-border.

The signal on most of the radio stations I tried in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Netherlands, Spain, Uganda, Tunisia, Germany, England, Ireland was top quality with very little disturbance while tuning into the station.

The website is a perfect companion for anyone looking for an endless supply of music from different cultures and languages — myself included.

History

This section of the website allows you to tune into audio clips from radio’s historical archives and also lends a special ear to how radio tried to bring the sound from different cultures to their land — crossing borders.

You can listen to recordings of various people, like Klarenz Barlow’s rendition of Calcutta city back in 1986, which was also broadcast in WDR Koln Studio as part of its Metropolis series,  or 1992s Women’s Day celebration on Fem Radio — the first UK Women’s Station, or the 1987 Soundbridge between Koln, Germany and San Francisco, USA, by Bill Fontana in which he mixes transmissions from 50 different radio stations, which is broadcast in both the places at once.

History takes us back into how the world was years back and how Radio was acting as one of the bridges to close the cultural gaps and stereotypes that divided the world.

Jingles

Jingles by stations were basically their identity in the old times, and still is in many cases. Unique programmes also have their own jingles, and these were used to signal the listener as to what’s coming up next on the station.

Listen to the jingle by the Voice of Peace from Tel Aviv, Israel in 1980 which sets a unique example of how commercial enterprise is mixed with propaganda, or listen to Radio Luxembourg’s jingle from the 80s or the famed Wheaties jingle from 1926 Minneapolis, which is supposed to have popularised sung jingles as there was a rise in the sale of cereals post this broadcast.

You can also learn how jingles would project a happy moment, a sad one or one that needs immediate attention just by relating sound to the upcoming broadcast.

Stories

Listen to Siobhan Stevenson talking from Cyprus, who was missing her hometown and just happened to find a radio transmitter at that point in time, which not only amused her with some Mediterranean music but also helped her pick a few words of the local language — Turkish and Greek.

You can listen to many other accounts from people around the world stating how Radio has helped in their lives — be it to learn other languages, or connect with the culture of that place and even realising the impact of a radio broadcast on certain cultures.

Verdict

Personally, Radio Garden is my go to radio service for now as it has so much more to offer apart from live radio stations. Delving into the history section or just listening to jingles from around the world is much more fun that it really sounds.

Delving into the history section or just listening to jingles from around the world is much more fun that it really sounds.

I strongly recommend anyone who is either a music or a history buff to try out this radio service today.