3 posts from July 2008

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.

The Station: 92.9 FM, WBOS.
The Format: Modern Rock.
The Hour: 5:06 to 6:06 PM, on Friday, July 11, 2008.
Stylistic Choice of the Day: Overuse of italics.

Radio 92.9, a Boston station owned by Greater Media, must have slightly rebranded recently, because a year ago they just called themselves "BOS", and not "Radio 92.9", and because they used to file themselves under the format "adult album alternative", and now they just say "modern rock". I tend to think of them as the NPR of rock stations--just as reprehensible as all the other ones, but calmer about it, which gives them the illusion of being better to a lot of people. The difference is that I find calmer rock stations easier to take than the alternative, where I would much rather get my news from FOX than from NPR, because at least FOX is upfront about how horrible they are, and goddammit, NPR, why do you have to be so horribly even-tempered all the time?

5:06. Everlast, What It's Like. F-
Are you fucking kidding me? Do we really need to be listening to The Worst Song of 1998, ten years later? Actually, it's funny--if you had asked me, I would probably have said that hearing this song again wouldn't be nearly as bad as it used to be back then, because I haven't been hearing it nonstop for months. But I would have been wrong. I remembered this song being atrociously awful, but it's so much worse than that. When it ends we get a brief and unobtrusive station ID.
5:08. Silversun Pickups, Lazy Eye. C
In comparison to Everfuckinglast back there, this song is unbearably awesome. Once my ears readjust, though, I start to notice how whiny and annoying it is, and how much I can't handle the singer's bizarre notion of enunciation. He sounds a lot like the guy from Tahiti 80, I've just noticed, and the singer from Tahiti 80 is the only reason I can't stand that band. Station ID, claiming less commercials and more music. We'll see how that goes.
5:13. The Ramones, Blitzkrieg Bop. B+
This has never been one of my favorite Ramones songs (those tend to be on End of the Century, honestly), but at least it's not one of the more obscenely overplayed ones. A station ID takes us into...
5:15. Ads. And then...wait, what? Station ID: "We promised one minute. And that was quick!" And seriously, we're back to the music already? Wow! Oh, wait, I bet there'll be another commercial break after whatever they play next. (For the record, I don't recall them promising me one minute, but I appreciate the thought.)
5:16. U2, Beautiful Day. D+
I used to find U2 bland but unoffensive, but recently that's changing, for the worse. This might actually be my least favorite single by them, if only because it represented their firm, public decision to stop doing what they wanted, artistically, because it wasn't making them enough money, and as a result it was fucking huge. Station ID, just as admirable as the ones preceding it, and yes, I also find it admirable that they didn't go right back to ads, the way I predicted.
5:20. House of Pain, Jump Around. B+
Hm. Did I happen into some kind of theme evening here or something? Two songs involving Everlast in less than fifteen minutes? Maybe I'm supposed to call and win something. Anyway, this song dates from when Everlast was the kind of obnoxious, dudey fratboy who knew how to have fun, instead of the kind who thinks he'll get laid if he pretends to care about things, and so it's pretty OK. Station ID, introducing "brand new Coldplay"...
5:24. Coldplay, Viva La Vida. C
...and "Viva La Vida" earns itself the dubious honor of being the first song I've heard twice in this project. That was fast!!! Radio 92.9 celebrates by not playing a station ID between songs, for once.
5:27. Green Day, Jar. C
I don't recognize this song at all, which is weird. I didn't know there were any Green Day singles I didn't know. It's also not nearly as good as any of the ones I know, because I like Green Day, dammit. They make some fine pop singles, and while American Idiot might not have contained the world's smartest political commentary, it was also the only, literally the only, political commentary in the mainstream at all in 2004, which is goddamned admirable. Um, anyway, this song is boring. Station ID.
5:30. Bob Marley, Could You Be Loved. C+
Bob Marley made me spend years thinking I didn't like reggae, before I discovered that there's a lot more to it than him. Compare him to Desmond Dekker or Errol Dunkley or Althea and Donna, say, and you'll realize how drastically uninspired he is, if you haven't yet. Station ID, this one a bit more smarmy than the previous ones.
5:34. Ads, and I'm starting to wonder if this station commissions its own ads, or carefully vets them or something, because none of them are unbearably grating. That's nice. Most of them are just a voice talking (not shouting!) with no music or sound effects. Station ID: "Commercials over. Music begins."
5:39. Stone Temple Pilots, Plush. B+
In general recently I've been finding the 90s really embarrassing. I think for the most part it's that people always claim that it was the decade of irony, but really, everyone spent all ten years being so fracking earnest about everything that in retrospect it's really hard to handle. Somehow, though, this feeling doesn't apply to Stone Temple Pilots, who I kind of hated then and kind of love now. I even, a few months ago, made myself an STP best of playlist on my itunes, with all of their singles up to "Sour Girl". I listen to it more often than I care to tell you. Station ID.
5:44. Lifehouse, Hanging by a Moment. C+
Even though yesterday I specifically named Lifehouse as part of a terrible, overly long-lived musical trend, I didn't really mind them when they came out. Actually, I didn't mind them to the point where it verged on liking them, although I don't think it went that far. They're definitely uninteresting, muddy-vocaled fake-rock balladry, but they don't sound like they're falling asleep when they do it, and they do seem to have some interest in being catchy. When this song was new, I probably would have given it more like a B- or even a B, but at this point it's kind of outlived its usefulness, and is certainly not the kind of song anyone needs to be listening to now that it's eight years old. Plug for a station-sponsored concert.
5:48. Foo Fighters, Learn to Fly. C
The Foo Fighters were never great, but they definitely declined in a very straight line through their career, where they started out pretty OK, with one or two actively good songs (I'm a fan of "This Is a Call", say, and even "Everlong", from their second album, is decent), but then with every passing year they descended straight into the pits of hell, where they currently reside. This song is from just before the middle of the process. What scares me is thinking about where they'll be five years from now. No station ID.
5:51. 3 Doors Down, It's Not My Time. D
In the interests of not being overly negative, the first three seconds of this song are pretty pleasant. Station ID, this time actually promising one minute.
5:55. Ads, and now that I'm noticing, they're continuing to be non-abrasive. This is fascinating to me. And, oh, interesting, when they come back, it's with a Station ID that says "adless music--underwritten by Atlas Liquors". Of course, they're far from adless, but it's an interesting technique anyway.
5:56. Alice in Chains, Man in the Box. D-
What's not an interesting technique is anything that went into this song. Station ID.
6:01. Eve 6, Inside Out. D
At this point, I would like to remind everyone that Radio 92.9 describes itself as a "modern rock" station. Now, I know the word "modern" can be rather confusing, but I've found that in general it means one of two things. The first is synonymous with "modernist", that is, belonging to one of many cultural movements beginning in Europe and North America in the later years of the 19th century and continuing well into the 20th (and arguably to the present day), with a focus on experimentalism and progressivism, often expressing a feeling of alienation. The second is roughly synonymous with "contemporary" or "current". If anyone can explain to me which of these two Radio 92.9 means when they say it, or perhaps can point me in the direction of a third definition of "modern" that fits what this station plays, I would be much obliged. Now, don't get me wrong, I appreciate that the station is admitting that the past exists, which is something that in general Americans could do more often, but for one thing, the amount of songs from eight or more years ago is really overwhelming, and for another thing, the nice thing about looking back at the past is that you can pick and choose. I guess I can understand people thinking back in 1998 that listening to Eve 6 was a good idea (hell, I was even briefly fooled by their dorky name), but ten years on, we should all be prepared to admit that it wasn't. Station ID introducing new Death Cab for Cutie. Oh, the joy.
6:04. Death Cab for Cutie, I Will Possess Your Heart. C
No you won't, Ben Gibbard, especially if you continue to insist on being such a wussy little fucker.

How to judge, how to judge. On the one hand, I appreciate that Radio 92.9 doesn't feel the need to shout at me at top volume all the time, like most radio stations. On the other hand, the resolutely even keel feels pretty bloodless. In the good column, we have the relative lack of ads (eight minutes to PRO FM's seventeen) and the unobtrusive (and occasionally absent!) station IDs, while in the bad column we have the extremely obvious fact that there is no human DJ involved in their programming (it's not just that I didn't hear one all hour--the website updates the "what's playing now" feature instantaneously, and also tells you what's coming on next, and I don't believe that that would work with a real DJ). On the plus side, they don't neglect the past. On the minus side, they play really dull music from the past, and don't go any further back than the nineties if it can be helped. Overall grade: C. Keep up the good work, quit the bad.

What they should have played instead.
The Go-Betweens, Love Goes On! Download.
If the goal is to play rock music of recent decades without jarring anyone, they could at least have reached back twenty years to 1988 and played this, one of the most beautiful low-key songs I've ever heard. Listen to that lovely, clean acoustic strum! Be moved by those heartwrenching lyrics! Sing along with the giddy ba-ba-bas in the chorus! When you're done, I dare you to come back and tell me you'd prefer Eve 6.

The Station: 92.3 FM, WPRO.
The Format: Top 40.
The Hour: 10:18 to 11:18 PM, Wednesday, July 9, 2008
Word of the Day: Abrasive, apparently. You'll see.

I haven't really listened to the radio since last April, when I last did this. Living radiolessly has been both good and bad, where I don't have to sit through, y'know, crappy radio, but also I've been feeling very disconnected from my own culture. So I'm gonna try it again. If you're wondering why it seems like this is the first time I'm hearing most of these songs, it's because it is.

92 PRO FM's claim to fame is that it was the Citadel Broadcasting Corporation's flagship station. The fact that Citadel is based in Las Vegas, has offices in New York, and launched with a Providence station, tells you something about how shitty the ways of the world are. Or at least it tells me; I can't speak for you. Oh, Citadel is also tangled up in some ineffable way with Radio Disney, the corporation best known to me as being the one that took over a decades-old real country station in Pawtucket and didn't tell anyone until they marched in at midnight and fired everyone. Er...anyway. Moral of the story is: Corporations suck. But can they provide good radio programming?

10:18. Natasha Bedingfield, Pocketful of Sunshine. C-
When her first album came out, I quite liked Natasha Bedingfield. "Unwritten" was massively overplayed, but not actually terrible, as vapidly inspirational teen pop goes, and "These Words" and "Single" were both pretty adorable and underrated. Now, with no change in her sound, I suddenly find her bland. Is she a victim of overexposure, my maturing musical tastes, my own caprice, or boring songwriting? Who can say? Station identification.
10:17. Boys Like Girls, Thunder. D
So apparently one of my closest friends (and by closest I mean what it usually means and also that I don't have to cross any streets to get to his house) has had someone from Boys Like Girls at his house several times because one of his roommates is good friends with him. When he was describing this to me, I didn't realize that Boys Like Girls were, like, big on the radio. Discovering this has not made the fact any more exciting.
10:21. Weird, overlong, abrasive beachy advertising Dunkin Donuts Wendy's station ID interlude that I don't even know how to describe.
10:22. Ads, followed by a station ID telling me to keep listening to hear music like Duffy, Katy Perry, and Chris Brown. Thankfully (SPOILER ALERT), only one third of that prediction will come true this hour.
10:27. Duffy, Mercy. C
Duffy is to, say, Etta James as Vampire Weekend is to Fela Kuti. OK, maybe not that dramatic, but I don't see any reason to listen to her instead of actually good soul music, especially since that other British white lady did it better first. I'm perfectly comfortable with you interpreting that to mean either Amy Winehouse or Dusty Springfield.
10:30. Danity Kane, Damaged. C
If I were grading songs based on how good they were relative to other songs by the same artist, this song would skyrocket off the charts and get like an A+++++, because it's so very much better than that awful "We in the caaaaaaaaarrrrah! We drive sloooooooowah!" song that I hated to death a few years back and still talk about almost daily. But I'm not grading that way, and this song is still only mildly acceptable.
10:34. DJ, talking about Mohegan Sun and someone named Ace Young who I've never heard of.
10:34. September, Cry for You. C
I didn't know Swedes were on the radio! Sadly, this is the dullest Swede I've ever heard. Station ID.
10:37. David Cook, The Time of My Life. D-
When are people going to get sick of this awful Lifehouse-Nick Lachey-Nickelback style power ballad nonsense? How long has it been now, ten years? Quit it!
10:40. Contest for a week's vacation in Newport, promoted by saying that if you spend a weekend staying still you don't need to pay for gas. Also, I swear they said something about a meet and greet with the Big Blue Bug. They're calling the whole thing a "staycation".
10:41. Ads, starting out with that abrasive Geico nonsense. A station ID takes us back.
10:45. Fergie, Clumsy. A
Oh dear. This is the first time I'm hearing this. When it started, my roommate yelled from the other room "Am I a bad person for liking this song?" And I said "No, I really like it so far! Who is it?" And then I found out the horrible truth. This is definitely by far the best thing she's ever done, with the possible exception of getting her head hollowed out by a zombie in Planet Terror. It's catchy, she's actually singing and not being abrasive, I like the way her voice is distorted in the chorus, and she can even handle the spoken bridge. And the bloopy Dee-Lite sample is pretty nice, as is the stompy percussiony sample thing.
10:48. DJ, talking about a "caption contest" that I don't want to know anything about and so won't look into.
10:49. Coldplay, Viva La Vida. C
I guess it makes sense for Coldplay to have sought out Brian Eno, because they clearly want to be U2 Mark II. I still don't get what Brian Eno gets out of working with overinflated boring bands like that, though (except of course for a gigantic paycheck, but you'd think he'd be set enough already). I bet they never needed to break out the Oblique Strategies during those sessions, because I bet they never encountered a problem that needed to be solved or a surprising situation.
10:52. Station ID with a promo for the website. A very, very long promo.
10:53. Ads. This Wendy's ad claiming that pizza at night is scary is the most horrible thing I've ever heard. Station ID, but it's a false alarm, because here's more ads.
10:57. Daughtry, Over You. D-
Because it's been a whole twenty minutes since David Cook, we need to hear himthis kind of thing again. And because we don't have enough of these bands, we have to turn to people who came in fourth place on American Idol two years ago. Station ID.
11:00. 3 Doors Down, It's Not My Time. D-
After eight years, I have absolutely nothing left to say about 3 Doors Down. Station ID: "Music for everybody."
11:04. Leona Lewis, Bleeding Love. B
I'm told this is the most popular song of the year so far, but this it's the first time I'm hearing it. When it started, I thought it was someone who wanted to be Sinead O'Connor but didn't realize that she had to be breathy. My roommate, who's very chatty right now, corrected me and pointed out that she's like Mariah Carey but gothy. I like the junky-sounding slowdancy beats (so does my roommate, if you're keeping track). I'm actually tempted to give it more than a B, but I'm hedging my bets here on how I'll feel about if if I hear it twenty million more times. When the song ends, the DJ comes on and confirms the popularity of the song.
11:08. Pink, Who Knew. C+
The continued hugeness of this song baffles me, because it's probably my least favorite Pink single of all, not to mention that the album it's on came out over two years ago and no one bought it, the single was released a few months later and no one listened to it, and then like a year later (which is still a year ago) it suddenly became huge. What a strange phenomenon. Also strange: the radio station's "what's playing now" thing claims that this song features The Indigo Girls, which it doesn't, although the very dull song three tracks after it on the album does. Station ID.
11:11. Gavin Rossdale, Love Remains the Same. D
Because it's been a whole fourteen minutes since Daughtry. Although I guess it's slightly impressive (ha ha, just kidding, it's not impressive) that he hasn't changed what he sounds like one tiny little bit since 1994 and he still fits in perfectly on pop radio. I wonder what the hell he and Gwen Stefani still have to talk about. DJ, promising new stuff from the Pussycat Dolls, which I won't hear because the next song will round out the hour.
11:15. Jesse McCartney, Leavin'. C
It's not saying much, but this is by far the best Jesse McCartney song I've ever heard. I think it's entirely because of that high-pitched, tremelo-y fifey sample, because Jesse McCartney's personal charms are, shall we say, limited.

And that's it. Coming to the end of this hour, I'm reminded of one of the reasons I stopped doing the last blog. This hour was truly awful. There were only two songs I actively liked, and I'm hesitant about both of them, one because it's by the pants-peeing antichrist, and the other because it sounds like the kind of thing I'll like the first ten times or so and then will be forced to listen to over and over and over again until I never want to hear any music by anyone ever again. Considering the abysmal quality of the music, I don't know whether to complain about or give thanks for the fact that nearly a third (over seventeen minutes) of the hour was taken up with ads, station IDs, and contest promos. Overall grade: D+. That's not based on any mathematical system, so don't go averaging the letter grades I gave each song and tell me that I did it wrong.

What they should have played instead:
Alizee, Fifty Sixty (David Rubato remix). Download
So it's not in English, which is a major obstacle to American airplay, but it's probably my favorite pure pop song of the year so far (aside, of course, from Girls Aloud's epic "Can't Speak French", which has the unfair advantage of being one of the very best pure pop songs of all time). Alizee started almost exactly eight years ago (her first big single was released in early July of 2000) as kind of the French answer to Britney Spears (that first big single was "Moi...Lolita"), and while she's still pretty damn charming, she hasn't progressed much since. The original version of this song is OK, I guess, but kind of blandly dancy and unexciting (and with a truly terrible video). The remix, on the other hand, is near-perfect: breezy, atmospheric, with that nice touch of the Ennio Morricone-style western sound that's always so pleasant. Alizee's vocals plus David Rubato's awesome production equals what the world should sound like.

[PS: Does anyone know how to use html on stupid Vox? I've grudgingly accepted using a button to turn on bold and italics, but Alizee is supposed to have an acute accent on the first e in her name, and I can't figure out how to do it in this silly interface.]