evolution

I am now officially disgusted with FM radio.

I’m sick to death of hearing the same forty quasi-R&B-Abercrombie-dance hits over and over again.

No, I’m not bitter because I can’t dance. In the world of sports, you hear players talk all the time about “playing within themselves,” i.e., not attempting to do things that are quite likely to turn out badly. That hasn’t stopped a great many folks from trying; however, it turns out that I’m quite a lot smarter than a great many folks as well. I realize that because girls like to dance and I do not that I am ruling out prime opportunities to meet girls, a past-time I wasn’t very good at in my late high-school/early college years, and one which I traded away for graduate school in maturity. Now that I am both mature and out of graduate school, I’d like that experience back — but I choose to do it by “playing within myself.” (I’ll let you know when that starts working.)

So I sit at Rusty’s Last Chance Saloon in Aggieville, enjoying my Bud Light, and my bad knees thank me. That leaves me to listen to the music — oh wait, I heard it already. The same soulless music they played last Saturday night, amd every Saturday night I’ve been in a bar since October 14, 1997 — the day I turned 21.

Then, for solace, I turn to the rock stations. Unfortunately for our hero, there is none to be found. The same disease afflicts them as well — replace your R&B-Abercrombie models and wannabes with skater punks and Goth wannabes, and repeat the above: you’ll still find me sitting at the bar, wondering if there is anyone like me left.

FM radio is the Maxim or People magazine of music: it attracts the dumbest and laziest people.

You know what I miss? The hard-driving rock of the 1960s and 1970s. I miss jazz music. I miss blues music. I miss old-school country and 80s new-wave and prog rock and 1970s/80s punk. Music that moves people — and I’m not talking about dancing. That’s why I’m such a huge Pearl Jam fan (as you’ll note from looking at my Audioscrobbler profile). They were a band contemporary with me who was making this kind of music. Now, it’s about getting dumb and attractive people and people who like dumb and attractive people to listen — because they’re the easiest to relieve of their money. I’m sure as Hell not dumb, and although I’m certainly not the Elephant Man, I’m no Abercrombie model either.

FM radio is dead. It wasn’t always thus. I mourn its passing.

There may be hope for audiophiles such as myself. Michael received for Christmas a Sirius satellite radio, which is quite a little service. Their on-air advertising is minimal to non-existent, meaning that more time is available to play good music. Even if one station does play a turd, you can always switch immediately to another and know that a good song is coming. Bonus: Sirius carries all NFL games on their home-market networks, so you get that game with the city’s own announcers. XM Radio does the same for baseball (therein lies a problem for me — I want both baseball and NFL).

The first music video that MTV ever played in 1981 when it went on the air was for “Video Killed the Radio Star”, by The Buggles. They were almost right — for MTV is to music what John Steinbeck’s character “Lennie” in Of Mice and Men is to a mouse: they squeezed all the life out of it.

Popular music may be dying, and there may be nothing we can do for it.

[Editor's note: There will be a lot more posts about culture and the modern single life as I finally step away from the academic world and into society. I always felt like I was missing something when I committed to study, and now I want it back. Can you get it back at nearly 30 (coming 10.14.2006)? I intend to find out. If you don't like it, scroll past to the political stuff. I still care about it, and I'll keep posting that too.]