KIIS FM, KROQ, KLOS—All of these are famous radio stations in the Los Angeles area. Due to companies like Apple, Spotify, and the ability to plug an auxiliary cord into a car or pop in a CD, radio is not as popular as it used to be. But if you are anything like me, your 15-year-old car does not have the privilege of that aux cord and your CD's are scratched. Any time I need to get from point A to point B, here I am left with nothing but the radio. How do I feel about that? I'm not too sure.

Let's start positive: the radio has a wide variety of stations. If you flip to one with a commercial or a song you don't like, no problem! There are plenty more stations to choose from. Other incredible perks about the radio are KROQ and Alt 98.7. Honestly, those are perks in themselves. For the most part, both of them play great music, ranging from hits from Nirvana to new artists like Tame Impala and The Black Keys. But my favorite part of the radio is that you can be introduced to new music all the time. Stations stay up to date with the newest music, so you're bound to hear a new hit quickly.

While there are perks, I think the list of negatives might be longer. Let's start with this "top 40" genre: while the songs might be really catchy, let's be real—for the most part, this is not actually good music. The catch about the radio is that top 40 is played on several stations (or, the most popular stations). Another thing about radio is that while, yeah, you can change stations, commercials are annoying. I do not want to spend my driving experience flipping around stations and trying to find the one song I like. Even though there are many stations that range from several genres, it can be hard to find one playing a song you like. Lastly, the thing I hate most about radio is it's ability to ruin a perfectly good song. We are a culture of over-abusing good things. We like something and we want it as much as possible. However, it doesn't take long for that thing to get old, get annoying, and die out. So many countless replays, I feel, have ruined not only perfectly good songs, but perfectly good bands and artists. Here is a prime example: Lorde. She is a great artist with an insane voice, but I cannot tell you the amount of time I receive laughter when her name comes up. Why? Her song "Royals" made her go from off the map to dead center of attention. That song was soon playing on every radio station all times of the day. It came to the point when that song would come on a station, you change the station and it was playing on the next one. It recently happened with Walk the Moon's "Shut Up and Dance" and is currently beginning with The Weeknd's "Can't Feel My Face." I am especially upset about that last one, because that song is absolute banger.

So what is my conclusion? I really don't know. The radio's awesome for belting out songs with your friends because, unless they live under a rock, there's a good chance that they'll know the lyrics. But then again, you won't get exposed to a very wide range of music, and trust me, there are countless of amazing bands and artists that might never hit the radio. But as of now, I guess I am going to stay in the grey area of how I feel about the radio.