50 Best Rock Songs About Radio
Rock Songs That Tune Into the Static and Signal
There’s something strange about hearing a song that sounds like it’s coming from an old radio somewhere down the hall. That tinny echo, the warble between stations, the crackle before the hook cuts through. It hits like a flashback you didn’t plan on having. Rock has always had a thing for radio—the idea of it, the ghosts it carries, the way it feels like connection even when no one’s listening on the other end. Some of these tracks talk directly to the static. Others circle the feeling of being broadcast into the void, waiting for someone to tune in.
You can picture it: a late-night drive, half-empty streets, headlights bleeding into the windshield while some forgotten DJ cues up a track that sounds too specific to be coincidence. The songs that orbit radio have that kind of pull. They drift between isolation and signal, between noise and meaning, like trying to catch a voice between frequencies. A few of these songs might not literally reference the airwaves, but they live in that same world—the one where music becomes the thing that fills the gaps between what you say and what you mean.
Rock found a home in static before streaming made silence convenient. The radio was its pulse, its stage, its rumor mill. You can still hear that heartbeat in tracks that shout into the dark, half-believing someone out there hears it. These cuts are for anyone who ever sat up late, volume low, waiting for the next song to find them. Here are the best rock songs about radio.
Top 10 Radio Rock Songs
1. 'The Spirit of Radio' by Rush
2. 'Radio Ga Ga' by Queen
3. 'Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?' by Ramones
4. 'Radio, Radio' by Elvis Costello
5. 'Heard It on the X' by ZZ Top
6. 'The Last DJ' by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
7. 'Mexican Radio' by Wall of Voodoo
8. 'FM (No Static at All)' by Steely Dan
9. 'Radio Free Europe' by R.E.M.
10. 'Around the Dial' by The Kinks
Essential Rock Songs About Music Broadcast #11 to 20
11. 'You Turn Me On I'm a Radio' by Joni Mitchell
12. 'Pilot of the Airwaves' by Charlie Dore
13. 'Radio Song' by R.E.M.
14. 'Turn Up the Radio' by Autograph
15. 'Radio Nowhere' by Bruce Springsteen
16. 'Radio' by Teenage Fanclub
17. 'Clap for the Wolfman' by The Guess Who
18. 'This Is Radio Clash' by The Clash
19. 'Left of the Dial' by The Replacements
20. 'W.O.L.D.' by Harry Chapin
Favorite Songs About Broadcasts and DJs #21 to 30
21. 'Radio' by Rancid
22. 'On My Radio' by The Selecter
23. 'Heartbreak Radio' by Rick Springfield
24. 'Rock DJ' by Robbie Williams
25. 'Radio' by Alkaline Trio
26. 'Devil's Radio' by George Harrison
27. 'New Radio' by Bikini Kill
28. 'Radio Wall of Sound' by Slade
29. 'I Wouldn't Believe Your Radio' by Stereophonics
30. 'Rock 'n' Roll High School' by Ramones
Catchy Rock Songs with a Radio Theme #31 to 40
31. 'Guerilla Radio' by Rage Against the Machine
32. 'The WASP (Texas Radio and the Big Beat)' by The Doors
33. 'Mohammed's Radio' by Warren Zevon
34. 'The Radio Is Broken' by Frank Zappa
35. 'Satellite Radio' by The Eels
36. 'On Your Radio' by Joe Jackson
37. 'Radio Love' by David Bowie
38. 'We Want the Airwaves' by Ramones
39. 'Radio Friendly Unit Shifter' by Nirvana
40. 'Radio Waves' by Roger Waters
Deep Cuts About Radio and Music #41 to 50
41. 'Car Radio' by Twenty One Pilots
42. 'Radio' by The Corrs
43. 'Hello (Turn Your Radio On)' by Shakespears Sister
44. 'Radio' by The Cult
45. 'The Radio Song' by Dillard & Clark
46. 'Radio' by The Sports
47. 'Radio' by L.A. Guns
48. 'I'm Gonna DJ' by R.E.M.
49. 'Boys on the Radio' by Hole
50. 'I'll See You on the Radio (Laura)' by The Kinks
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