Over the past couple of weeks, on the commute home I have been putting aside my iPod at 6:30PM in favor of my mini-portable radio so I can listen to the NPR radio program Marketplace. When we were living in Boston, I’d always listen to it on the frequent weekend trips down to the NYC area and grew to become a great fan of the program.
And yesterday, a piece on the program just re-inforced why its just such a great program. The story led in talking about how toymaker Hasbro had a bad quarter, highlighting one cause being the influx of “non plastic” products into the market. The story then shifted to how people are willing to spend more on products made of metals and woods since such materials give the product extra cashé. They then profiled Motorola who is manufacturing a platinum phone, highlighting its hefty price, and ironically noting that you could buy a “metallic” ringtone for all of $1.50. And the “metallic” ringtone? None other than “Enter Sandman” by Metallica. They sampled the ringtone, and then faded into the actual song by Metallica! It was just a fantastic transition.
Now I am hardly a fan of Metallica (However “Enter Sandman” is one song of theirs that I actually do like), however my point is that Marketplace has always had a fun, irreverent, “tongue in cheek” perspective to its business reporting which makes the show so unique. And only Marketplace would be able to get away with fading out from a story into “Enter Sandman” by Metallica.