I just spent 14 hours in a car with no CD or tape player, which means discounting an hour or so of talk radio and flipping through stations I've heard about three hours of music roughly four times. I know that radio playlists are limited and repetitive by nature and that's fine. I have no problem hearing "Stand Back" or "Go Your Own Way" an endless number of times per hour because unless you were born without a soul you understand that each of those songs is endlessly enjoyable. Even hearing horrible songs like "Bye Bye Miss American Pie" and "Mellow Yellow" over and over again isn't so bad cause you can get mad at the radio and pretend like it's a DJ you hired for your yacht party (you're a billionaire) who just violated the one rule you gave him. However, there is a family of songs that gets played to death that make no sense whatsoever. They aren't bad enough to hate, just extremely, extremely mediocre. Mediocre to the point that it is impossible to picture the type of person who would look at a list of potential songs and go, "Oooh, I think I'll go with that one." Here is a small sampling of such songs that I heard no less than three times each yesterday."Take the Money and Run" by whoever sings it - I think this is a case of DJs overlooking the general lousiness of a song on account of liking the literal meaning of its lyrics, as in "Wouldn't it be great if there was a lot of money somewhere and you could take it and run?" "Bang on the Drum All Day" is a similar sort of deal but is excluded from this list because it's pretty awesome.Any song by Bachman-Turner Overdrive - Same deal as above."When a Man Loves a Woman/ Unchained Melody/ Easy Like Sunday Morning/" - Any slow soul standard really. Not awful songs, but what's going through the DJ's mind when he or she puts this on? Are they just guessing that their audience could use a "cool down" for their day, or do you think maybe shit's getting hectic around studio and they're the ones who need the cool down? This shit is a total snooze alert when you're trying to drive.That "Bubbly" song - I can't believe this song is real. Jeff Johnson wrote a funny thing about it on his blog last year and, I don't know, I guess my mind just wouldn't accept what it was being exposed to as an authentic, meant-in-earnest song. It seemed like it had to be some sort of really bizarre internet hoax. Hearing it play for real on the radio was like having Sasquatch walk up to me on the street and try to bum a smoke."Glory Days" - Doo dah doo doo, DOO DAH DOO DOO, doo dah doo doo, DOO DAH DOO DOO, doo dah doo doo, DOO DAH DOO DOO, doo dah doo doo, DOO DAH DOO DOO, doo dah doo doo, DOO DAH DOO DOO, doo dah doo doo, DOO DAH DOO DOO…"The Letter" - This is the epitome of the song nobody is into that keeps getting played for some ungodly reason. Who the fuck is into this? Nobody. "The Letter" always bugged me more than other tunes because it sounds like a shitty version of some other song the same way that one Neil Diamond song sounds like a shitty version of "Sweet Caroline." There is, however, an all right sitar cover of it on one of those Incredibly Strange Music comps Re:Search made. See below."I Want to Know What Love Is" by Foreigner - Again, not terrible, but it loses points because you can tell the DJ just didn't have the balls to put on what they really wanted to hear, "All I Need Is a Miracle" by Mike & the Mechanics. Or, shit, what's that Peter Cetera one that's like "WannaBEEEE, DUNNA DUN, can't beliEEEEEEEVE, DUNNA DUN"?"Mama I'm Coming Home / Changes" by Ozzy/Sabbath - There are entire bands who play nothing but sentimental power ballads, some of them pretty good. Why anyone would feel the need to plumb the depths of one of the heaviest bands/guys in the history of tunes for its two worst songs is mind-boggling.The Metallica cover of "Turn the Page" - How about the part in this where he's like "You walk into a restaurant strung out from the road, you feel the eyes and pretend it doesn't bother you, but you just want to explode"? You want to explode because people are looking at you in a diner? People in diners always stare at the guy who just walked in. In the words of someone's dad, "Suck it up already."--And just so no one can accuse me of being unconstructive, here are a couple suggested songs to replace the above when they are rightfully removed from radio playlists across the country.More stuff by Yes - Particularly from that hammy, super-elfish-sounding period in the late 70s around Yesterdays and Tormato. A little "Starship Troopers" every now and then wouldn't hurt either."Between Youth" by Christian Death - How hard would you shit yourself when this came on? At first it'd just be the opening guitar riff and you'd gasp like, "No…" and then the drums and everything would kick in like "BREEEAWNG!" and you'd be all "YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!""Quinn the Eskimo" by Manfred Mann - I don't know what happened here. They used to play the living shit out of this song on the radio, but now you're lucky to catch it once for every 10 or 12 Take the Money and Runs.Pink Floyd's The Wall in its entirety.Thank you,
TERRY HAND
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TERRY HAND