What's he on about now?

In case the articles, essays and opinions throughtout this site just weren't enough for you, here's my online diary (a.k.a. 'blog'). It's as close as you'll come to the inside of my head, so don't say I didn't warn you
(and remember, you can always e-mail me if you love or loathe anything you're about to read)...


   Wednesday, July 17, 2002

RADIO GA-GA

Been trying to listen to the radio off and on over the last week. I say 'trying' because I'm facing the fact that FM radio, as a pop format, is artistically dead. Radio introduced the younger me to new bands like Faith No More, Erasure, the Replacements and many more, often all on one station. Now we've got pop stations playing the same Sheryl Crow song every hour ("MIX 99.9" has a lie for a name); ghastly "lite-rock" stations playing mouldy ballads that we never enjoyed the first time round (does anyone wish to hear "Separate Lives" by Phil Collins EVER again?); dance music stations that alternate between melodically-challenged Euro-house thumping or misogynist, money-obsessed hip-hop (your bling-bling doesn't interest me); and poor Q-107 clinging to its archaic "Classic Rock!" format ("Rock and Roll Hootchie Koo": see "Separate Lives" above). Worst of all, there's some kind of strange pact that ensures that "Escape" by Enrique Iglesias gets played hourly on nearly ALL these stations. It's been horrible.

Maybe it's just a sad side-effect of getting older. Maybe I'm just old enough to recognize that, if Green Day seemed like a watered-down Ramones, then Sum 41 is a watered-down Green Day. Maybe I'm just becoming the cranky old man who refers to all new music as "noise". Not ready to accept that just yet, though. I know crap when I hear it and "Escape" is crap.

I'm happy to say, however, that I AM listening to the radio as I type this, listening to "Canada's Jazz Station," JAZZ-FM 91.1 in Toronto. I'd hate to give up pop but right now, Dizzy Gillespie sounds great.

Labels: Trawna