1 post tagged “rock”
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.
