Had I known, in the fall of 1977, that every day for the next thirty years of my life I would hear We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions, I never would have bought the album News of The World. Of course there are a lot of albums I might never have bought, but that one in particular stands out. I don't think there are words enough to accurately or adequately describe how utterly sick to death I am of hearing the same tiny handful of songs repeated ad nauseam on "Classic Rock" radio.
And to the inevitable question, "Why not listen to another station?" well, actually, I do--whenever I can. The problem, though, is two-fold: one, the local National Public Radio station (which is my station of choice 90% of the time) plays no music until approximately 9 or 10 pm and by then it just doesn't really matter unless I'm driving home at that time of night; and, two, the local National Public Radio station (which is my station of choice 90% of the time) plays no music until approximately 9 or 10 pm. Most of my day is spent incarcerated in a 2500 square foot prison cell disguised as a liquor store with a big clear glassy thing overlooking a sprawling meadow of dirty grey asphalt and, between my co-workers--like Golf Gardner who has to listen to The Oldies ("Super Sixties and Seventies," so they say, but I hear Hurts So Good enough to be suspect of that tag line) and Marky DeSade who feels that it's best for us as a company to be more conservative and go for "customer friendly" (i.e. "safe") music--I am usually forced to listen to sheer dreck for eight to ten hours a day.
To be fair, though, Marky likes to fancy himself a total "Headbanger" and usually the minute I'm gone for the day (as I've heard from other employees) he breaks out his Judas Priest CDs and plays Air Guitar to an adoring crowd of none. Whenever I turn on the local headbanger station, though, Marky will scowl and huff, showing his disapproval and disdain for my choice of stations. Maybe he doesn't like it when I savagely attack the Gay S&M Goth Opera that is System of a Down and that wretched bullshit excuse for a "song" called BYOB. Or maybe he's afraid to rock out in front of me to the Gay S&M Goth Opera antics of System of a Down and thereby belie his Mr Corporate Butt Licker exterior. Maybe he can eat me. (And of course playing CDs in the store is a drag because our cheap built-in speaker system separates the music so horribly that it's like listening to a bad mono mix). But, unfortunately, the one lone radio station that actually plays anything metal spends a vast majority of their time talking about boobs and pot, and when they do finally break into a few scant minutes of music it's generally from the vast collection of tracks on the Metallica CD they own. It's Like Bob & Tom for fifteen year old burn-outs, and not terribly entertaining.
I just wish the local stations would stop fellating their Arbitron sugar daddies and dig a little deeper into the musical closet once in a while. Seriously; Pink Floyd produced more than Dark Side of the Moon and The Wall; The Rolling Stones have more (and far better) songs than Sympathy For the Devil; Old Time Rock & Roll isn't even a fun song at weddings any more; Paul McCartney (either with The Beatles, with Wings, or as a solo act) has had a career that spans over forty years--I think you can play more than Band on the Run! You sorry bastions of the lame and unimaginative should give a listen to the little high school radio station broadcasting in a nearby city--the one that plays everything from Animal Logic to Zebra and everything in between--and perhaps learn a thing or two about what it means to be leaders and not followers hobbling along behind the pack...
It's not very often that you can say music will never be the same again. I remember being moved to tears at the 2005 Pink Floyd reunion because, as a fan for 35 years, it was the closest I had ever come to the exhilaration of seeing them live. I never dreamt it would be the last time.
