Don't want to think about it, don't want to talk about it, I'm just so sick about it

The Station: 93.3 FM WSNE
The Format: "Hot" Adult Contemporary
The Hour: 11:38 AM to 12:38 PM, Monday, July 14, 2008.
Stylistic flaw of the day: I get pretty overwrought at times.

Coast 93.3, operated by the evil, Mitt Romney-owned Clear Channel, is one of those awful "at work" stations that exist only to convince us that any entertainment or cultural options we have are more boring than our boring lives, and so therefore our boring lives must not be boring after all, and so lead us to the conclusion that we shouldn't kill ourselves. This is important because our corporate rulers don't want us to kill ourselves until our period of usefulness is over.

11:38. Alicia Keys, No One. A-
Good start! From my point of view, anyway; if I were at a shitty job, this song would definitely remind me that the world contained more than it was offering me. Alicia Keys is weird, where she's a very boring woman, but nevertheless has a solid three great songs (the other two are "Fallin'", which, if you can get away from the massive overplaying, is still a pretty damn good soul single, and "Karma", which just inarguably kicks ass). I like the way that this song took the cheerleading/marching band craze of two or three years before it came out, slowed it down, and mixed it with Keys' generally uninspired brand of neo-soul. The off-key synthesized horns push the whole thing over the top. If I'd been listening to the radio more over the last year, I'd probably be dramatically sick of it, but I wasn't, so I didn't. DJ introducing Gavin Rossdale.
11:41. Gavin Rossdale, Love Remains the Same. D
Blah.
11:45. Justin Timberlake, What Goes Around...Comes Around. B+
This is one of the few songs on FutureSex/LoveSounds that I think works better as a single than an album track. On the album, it kind of gets lost as a latter-half ballad, but on the radio I tend to think it sounds pretty beautiful. Except when I get distracted by how awful the lyrics are. A DJ comes on and tells us what the last few songs were, which is nice, and now she's talking about how Alicia Keys is a favorite to sing the Quantum of Solace theme song now that Amy Winehouse is out of the picture. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but I do know that it's a dramatic improvement over Chris Cornell. Yeek.
11:49. Ads. One of them starts with an extremely boring dialogue between a "husband" and "wife" about how their ceiling fan doesn't "work", and the husband says that sure it does, there's a draft coming off of it, and she says, "No, that's not what I mean, I mean it just doesn't work in the kitchen" and the husband says "Oh, you're talking about a design thing", which sounds just like most commercials predicated on the hilarious notion that MEN AND WOMEN ARE DIFFERENT HAHAHAHA, except that they're so hushed and bored-sounding that the whole thing comes off seeming kind of surreal and creepy, and not in the good way. I wish I'd recorded it so I could show you all how weird it sounds.
11:53. Santana featuring Chad Kroeger, Into the Night. F-
Ugh, there goes that damn Santana again. Any song called "Into the Night", as far as I'm concerned, had better be damn sure that it can compete with this one. And obviously, Santana is no Angelo Badalamenti, Chad Kroeger is no Julee Cruise, and whatever team of corporate executives wrote the lyrics is no David Lynch. Station ID.
11:57. Mariah Carey, Fanasy. B-
The beginning of this song sounds like Mark Snow on a bad day writing a song for a constipated woman in a way I never noticed before. Once the song picks up and the "Genius of Love" sample comes in, it gets better, and I think this is one of Mariah Carey's very best singles. Not that that's saying all that much. Hahahaha, she just got to the bridge, I forgot that she sang the "I'm in heaven with my boyfriend/My lucky boyfriend" part of "Genius of Love". That's almost as funny as in "Down In It" by Nine Inch Nails when Trent Reznor starts singing that "rain rain go away" song. Very formal Station ID.
12:01. Daughtry, Feels Like Tonight. D
I don't know if this song is actually slightly better than "Over You" or if I'm just in a slightly better mood, or what, but I'm really feeling the D rather than the D-. True story: 93.3's website doesn't seem to have a "what's playing now" feature (shame!), so I had to google the lyrics to find out what this song was. And it was hard, because the lyrics are 100% a string of overused cliches. Update: I did just find the "what's playing now" feature. It's very well hidden. If you're bored, trying to find it might be a fun diversion for maybe five to ten minutes. DJ, briefly, introducing the next song.
12:05. Kelly Clarkson, Behind These Hazel Eyes. C
Like, you'd think that "I can't breathe/I can't sleep/I'm barely hanging on/Here I am/Once Again/I'm falling to pieces" was a string of anonymous cliches, but compared to the Daughtry lyrics, you'd be wrong. Station ID:
12:08. Coldplay, Viva La Vida. C
Wow, three for three. I was originally going to dock it half a letter grade for that, but this time I'm noticing some of Brian Eno's production touches that I do like amidst all the bloviation. The bells are pretty cool, and timpani's always welcome, and the abstract textures in the instrumental bridge are actually semi-inspired. They're only nice touches on a boring song, but still, at least there's some effort. DJ gives the weather.
12:12. Madonna, Like a Prayer. B
Weirdly, this isn't either the original single version or the Immaculate Collection remix. I wonder what version this is. Sadly, my musical vocabulary is limited enough that I can't describe what's different. Anyway, this song isn't one of Madonna's best singles, and is definitely probably her most overrated one, but it's still a good song, and I guess is iconic in its way, and I'm a fan of icons. Station ID.
12:15. Linkin Park, Shadow of the Day. C-
Gawrsh, I didn't know there was new Linkin Park. And to think that it's the only song by them that I've ever been able to remotely stand, with the exception of "Faint", which I actively liked because of the batty-ass string sample. Although actually in the time that it took me to look up the name "Faint", which I had forgotten, this song had built into something far more objectionable than what it started as. I liked some aspects of it at first the way I just said I like some aspects of "Viva La Vida", because there were some nice production touches on an otherwise bad song. But then those aspects either went away or got recontextualized into awfulness. It's appropriate that I feel the same way about it as the Coldplay song, too, because with this song Linkin Park seems to be jumping on Coldplay's "We wish we were U2 for some reason" bandwagon. DJ, advertising Geico.
12:20. Ads. Because we need to have the DJ advertising things and then have actual ads right after.
12:24. Sheryl Crow, If It Makes You Happy. B
Sheryl Crow is a bad, bad, bad person, or at least from the perspective of someone who listens to music she is, because she makes bad music. This was true in 1993, when her first album came out (and 1994, when it got big), and this year, when her most recent one came out. It was true in 1998, and 2002 (especially in 2002), and 2005. However, it was not true in 1996, when her second album came out. That album is awesome, a weird, cut-up, paranoid schizophrenic burst of craziness that's genuinely scary from time to time. I don't begin to understand how Sheryl Crow had it in her, but she did, and I love it. I can see how this song would be unbearable if you only know it as an overplayed single, but in the context of the album it's pretty breathtaking. Note: I only linked to that particular Sheryl Crow discography site because I think it's hilarious that it looks like Geocities in 1998 but is completely up-to-date. Station ID.
12:29. Maroon 5 featuring Rihanna, If I Never See Your Face Again. D+
Oh, Rihanna, you're better than this. Station ID.
12:32. Leona Lewis, Bleeding Love. B-
Well, hello again. I already like it a little less. DJ again.
12:36. Ads.
12:38. Matchbox 20, These Hard Times. D
I wonder what it's like to be in Matchbox 20. I guess they can use their riches to cover up their missing souls.

I will admit that Coast just played some songs I like quite a bit, and that the experience of listening to them for an hour is not entirely awful. I even appreciate the way the DJ talks frequently and briefly (which to me is the ideal DJ behavior) enough to overlook her smarmy simperiness, which rivaled Mary Alice's from Desperate Housewives. If you averaged out the letter grades I gave, you'd probably get right around a C, which seems right for the content, if you ignore the context. The context, though, is the extremely belligerent nature of at-work stations, and the overwhelmingly negative role they play in our society. They are a key part of the corporate agenda, and integral part of keeping us in a state of bland contentment where we'll feel neither the need nor the desire to better the world, and for that I cannot forgive them. Overall grade: D.

What they should have played instead:
Graham Lambkin, The Currency of Dreams. Download
Graham Lambkin is a master of that combination of beautiful and terrifying that I think would best jolt America's vast lower middle class into awareness. On this track, the gorgeous, Romantic piano and violin parts swoop slowly and majestically into one another, partially lulling the listener into a reverie, while the incongruous production--Lambkin takes the overused lo-fi aesthetic and recontextualizes it into something entirely different--reminds us to pay attention, because Something Is Happening Here. And then--well, I almost feel like I should put a SPOILER ALERT on this, because it's probably better if you don't know they're coming the first time, but interspersed throughout the piece are some truly startling moments, moments that would probably sound really dumb described in words, but which really and truly scare the crap out of me. Turn it up.