For decades the best way to hear new music was to turn on the radio. Sure, you might get stuck with white dudes ruining great songs. You at least heard something new, and could change the station if you wanted something else to come through your speakers.

Now you can’t even change the station if you want something new.

Next month we say goodbye to another rock radio station, WBCN in Boston. Not that rock radio has been stellar lately. We’re just seeing a severe shift to top-40 radio strangling everything else.

And when’s the last time anyone thought listening to radio is about discovering new music? Apart from college radio, it’s the same songs everywhere. People who listen to the radio have no desire to find an alternative. They’re not really into music; they’re into something melodic playing in the background.

Don’t agree with me? Look at all the options now. We have Pandora for those of us wanting something new. It creates an entire radio station based on a song or a band, and if you pick anything even slightly outside the mainstream you get blown over with bands you never knew existed. There are countless other streaming sites and places to share music. And call it illegal all you want, p2p sharing services are far from dead. Even the researches are finding out that people who download music for free are a lot more likely to buy music.

So what’s the advantage to listening to radio? A bunch of obnoxious DJs during my morning commute, advertisements galore, and the same songs played a half dozen times each day with “classics” mixed in. Doesn’t matter what station you listen to, odds are that’s the format.

In February, after hearing nothing but godawful Hawaiian DJs for a week, I came back home, turned on morning radio on my drive to work, found it pissed me off, and changed my car’s tuner to the station I can play my iPod on. It’s either the iPod or Pandora or silence now. Silence is far better than most stations out there if you ask me.

What’s the longest drive I’ve gone in total silence? Over an hour. Bliss. I’m never going back.

Today’s radio is a distraction. It’s the same stuff over and over with annoying advertisements. I doubt it dies any time soon, but I’m not sure its future is all that great. I won’t be paying attention to it either way.