Radio Free AmericanaRadio Free Americana

Radio Free Americana has run out of a studio in Charlottesville, Virginia since 2005, two decades of one-station free-form built on a simple refusal: it does not accept that the categories mean very much. Its own list of what it plays runs to twenty-odd genres and ends with the cheerful admission that it is not sure what any of those words mean, since it is all pop music as far as this station is concerned. It takes no advertising at all and runs on donations through a nonprofit sponsor.

The priority is new releases and new reissues, scoured from wherever they turn up and added to the rotation daily, with a deep back catalogue behind them. In practice that means Americana next to power pop, pub rock, cosmic country, rockabilly, garage, old-time, outsider records and soul. A weekly airplay chart goes out each Friday to promoters, labels and listeners alike.