Thursday, June 10, 2004
It's like watching a car wreck:
The last few days I've been driving around listening to 107.7, The Lake, the new radio station. Let's put aside for a minute my preference for a return of the Yankees radio broadcasts to any music format. It's torture to listen to but I can't keep myself away. I would say that I'm at the epicenter of its target demographic, which I would describe as: "White, 35 to 55, went to college in the 1970s and tried to stay hip about pop music after that, sort of like that guy from High Fidelity." I have heard everybody from Al Green to Pink Floyd ("Sheep") to Billy Joel (two songs in one day from "The Stranger") to Dr John to Bill Withers to Paul Simon to Elvis Costello ("Red Shoes") to Rod Stewart ("Every Picture Tells a Story") to . . . whoever else you can possibly think of, and the promos threaten to play the Indigo Girls and Dave Matthews. The fascinating part of it is that you have no way to guess what the next song will be. One song will be great and the next will suck like no song has ever sucked. There is absolutely no thematic or philosophical continuity to the music sequencing. It's like a Canadian cover band. You would never make a mix tape or disk so lacking in structure. Although all of the sequences are terrible, I memorized one in paticular because it was so weird:
Pretenders, "Show Me the Meaning of The Word" or whatever they call it
Led Zeppelin, "The Ocean"
The Cars, "Stop and Go"
HUH?
Fascinating but infuriating.
The last few days I've been driving around listening to 107.7, The Lake, the new radio station. Let's put aside for a minute my preference for a return of the Yankees radio broadcasts to any music format. It's torture to listen to but I can't keep myself away. I would say that I'm at the epicenter of its target demographic, which I would describe as: "White, 35 to 55, went to college in the 1970s and tried to stay hip about pop music after that, sort of like that guy from High Fidelity." I have heard everybody from Al Green to Pink Floyd ("Sheep") to Billy Joel (two songs in one day from "The Stranger") to Dr John to Bill Withers to Paul Simon to Elvis Costello ("Red Shoes") to Rod Stewart ("Every Picture Tells a Story") to . . . whoever else you can possibly think of, and the promos threaten to play the Indigo Girls and Dave Matthews. The fascinating part of it is that you have no way to guess what the next song will be. One song will be great and the next will suck like no song has ever sucked. There is absolutely no thematic or philosophical continuity to the music sequencing. It's like a Canadian cover band. You would never make a mix tape or disk so lacking in structure. Although all of the sequences are terrible, I memorized one in paticular because it was so weird:
Pretenders, "Show Me the Meaning of The Word" or whatever they call it
Led Zeppelin, "The Ocean"
The Cars, "Stop and Go"
HUH?
Fascinating but infuriating.
