Bad Idea #43: July 30, 2010

I am an avid 89.5 listener. KMFA is the only thing that plays in my car from August until December. Then I pause to listen to Christmas music, and return to public radio in January. But come June, I switch over to the more popular stations. ("What?" you say? "Isn't 89.5 the most popular station among college students in Austin, TX?" To which I would roll my eyes and tell you to stop making fun of me.)

96.7 Kiss FM has a lot to offer in the mornings on the way to work. The Bobby Bones Show truly is entertaining, and even informative at times. And I have a massive crush on Bobby Bones. He's a classy guy. His aura reads positive and beautiful even across FM radio waves. But talk shows are beside the point.

Pop music today is not all bad. I don't NOT listen to it all year because I don't like it. If its at least catchy, it has done its job and deserves to sell. No, I chose to refrain from 'round-the-clock popular music because I cannot handle listening to the same ten songs for months at a time. Pop radio stations almost always kill their hits by consistently practicing the horrible idea of overplaying them.

Ke$ha is trashy as sin. I don't think that, if I knew her as a person, I would have much respect for her or want to become best friends. But "Tik Tok" and "Your Love is My Drug" were some really great songs... until I heard them thrice in one 20 minute car ride. Similarly, some really great recent pop hits, songs that I have found to be new and innovative and GUIDING POP MUSIC IN NEW DIRECTIONS have been obliterated by radio DJ's who listen to every request they get and just keep one record spinning all day long.

If I hear "California Girls," "Hey, Soul Sister," "Bulletproof," "Airplanes," "Billionare," "Break Your Heart," or ANYTHING by Lady Gaga over the weekend, I might die. This is not a drill. My eardrums might squirt out of my ears and RUN to get away from the SAME MUSIC OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN, and then I will be deaf. Then I will not hear the screech of the giant Norwegian Ridgeback that swoops in from behind to eat me as I get out of my car, and will be chomped by a dragon from a fictional book series, suffocating in his saliva as he swallows me whole, burning up to ashes as I pass the part in his throat that produces fire.

Dramatic?!

NO. NOT IN THE LEAST BIT. Did you not read the part about this NOT BEING A DRILL?

So radio goes back to 89.5, where the worst piece of music I am going to hear is Bolero.

(I'll let the bassoon players hate me for hating Bolero. At this point? I. don't. CARE.)

I got the magic in me...

Julia