I was appalled by Jason Hough’s letter about KURE in the Feb. 13 edition of the Daily. I am sure that many ISU students and people in Ames do think KURE’s air play is “crap.” I would wager that most of these people are not connoisseurs of music. As Fairholt said, “Though few art lovers can be connoisseurs, many are dilettantes.” So for the many dilettantes we have many “corporate-run” stations and for the few connoisseurs of Ames we have KURE.

Maybe Mr. Hough would rather KURE be like the rest of the state’s university stations. Then we could listen to NPR and classical music. How many people do you know that even bother to stop at 90.1 FM (except for the jazz)? I do agree that some of the music does not appeal to me but this does not make it crap. KURE does bring a wide variety of music (not commercials) to the airwaves. Where else can one hear world music, techno, R&B and metal all on the same station?

Much of the music on mainstream radio got its start on college independent radio or corporate stations willing to play music not in the top 40. KURE DJs were playing System of a Down long before 103.3 and will probably still play them after the hype dies down. On commercial radio one can always be guaranteed that it hasn’t “been a while” since you heard that song last but if one wants to hear something new, listen to KURE.

Dan Johnston

Junior

Finance