- This is an issue due to music labels being unable or unwilling to take risks.
- Regardless if you like the music or not, people need to be fairly paid for their work. Musicians/Labels should not be strong-arming/bullying songwriters into taking credit for their work (and thus receiving royalties for work they did not do).
2020 was a great year for music, but not if you only listen to the radio...
I don't listen to the radio on my own time. I've just been working with guys who cycle through 3 stations that all play the exact same songs.
One possible solution is to see if there are independently-run stations in your area. I live near a university, so there is a student-run station that explicitly is not allowed to play top-charting songs. So I get some good music discovery, and awkward banter from new djs. If you have access to a computer, then you have access to basically any station. soma.fm is pretty good.
It definitely is frustrating to see the same songs on the radio over and over, but that's really an issue from iHeartRadio (formerly Clear Channel) owning stations across the country. Boycott iHeartRadio if you can.
These two coworkers, actually, are excellent. I love working with them. Just their music choice for work is horrible. I'm pretty lucky that the only things I have to complain about here are the hours and background music.