Songs that are sped up on FM radio

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I haven't listened to FM radio much in the last several years. I tuned in to some classic rock/hits type of stations and could not believe my ears. Some of the songs sounded sped up, pitched shifted, and compressed. These were songs I've known since my childhood and heard thousands of times before on radio, cassette, vinyl, or TV, before digital became the norm.

Most notable was the Aerosmith song Rag Doll. It was sped up to a downright manic pace. Not just faster, the rhythm of the song was completely different, almost like a fraction of the beat was just cut out altogether. It sounded like garbage. I thought, who on earth would want to listen to this crap. I was so repulsed I felt like calling up the station and cussing them out.

Well after doing some reading, I found out this practice is nothing new, for example...

http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ulti ... 000520;p=1
http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic. ... 3&t=587149

So, sounds like some stations do this because it actually gets more listeners??

I just...I don't know...I'm speechless...do people actually like hearing music that way?

I've noticed this when hearing some familiar songs played on Youtube. They're played too fast, and the pitch is slightly too high. It drives me crazy. It sounds really wrong and I can't listen to it.

I know they do it on purpose in some cases for various reasons. But I just hate it.

Time is money in commerical radio. They have to cram stuff into the hour . So speeding up the songs slightly shortens the songs, and allows more time leftover to sell as air time to advertisers as commercials. Thats the main reason they do it.