Saturday, July 13, 2013

Jerk Jams-A Collection Of Overplayed Radio Songs

So much music but so little outlets to hear it on radio, especially the Cumulus controlled stations that the playlist didn't vary at all.  In fact it has gotten worse over the years.  Thank Bill Clinton for signing the infamous 1996 Telecommunications act that effectively killed music more than the plane crash of 1959 that robbed the world of what would have happened if Buddy Holly and Richie Valens lived although J P Richardson is surely missed as well.   Monopoly's are not good for anybody, unless you're a corporate entity like Cumulus or Clear Channel or up and comers like Gannett owning the net papers and reminding you if you're not a subscriber you only have so many articles read before they black it out on you.  Technology is getting better to the point that you can actually listen to better radio stations on the net on your cell phone or I Pod but unless I don't have it on regular radio and not around a computer it means nil to me.  Maybe in another year or two we will have the right sounding outlet to enjoy a KCDX (if they change their IPOD) or Radio Buzz'd or KEXP and bypass forever the Cumulus owned stations which I have more CDs than their approved playlist.

For the most part a lot of the songs I do have but never play them, some I never liked in the first place. But The FOX and even KMRY have burned the songs out to the point that I never want to hear them again.  Even 40 years ago we still have enough songs from up and coming artists to balance out the overplayed and even The Candy Man from Sammy Davis Jr was tolerable till they played it twice in two hours then I changed the channel to KLWW.  And Led Zeppelin when they played it on KCRG or KLWW or KRNA back then was an event and not an excuse to change the channel.  I can listen to Stairway To Heaven at home okay but not on KRNA or KFMW anymore or Man In The Box from Alice In Chains.  The worst example of overplayed is KDAT, Iowa's number 1 soft rock channel and the worst shit is over there. Hearing Celine Dion's My Heart Goes on is like having your skin being tore off down to exposed nerves and pouring salt on them.  Painful.  There's other songs that I originally buy but got rid of them due to radio overkill, Crazy On You from Heart, the meaning of the song taken away from it being played all the time and Ann Wilson's shrieking just grate on the nerves. Or Janis Joplin Me And Bobby McGee.although Ball And Chain hasn't aged very well either.

The narrowminded and money making ventures of Clear Channel/Cumulus has destroyed the up and coming artist. Major labels don't groom out a band like they used to and today's up and comers have to subject themselves to ridicule and abuse on American Idol and The Voice or have to go through talent shows to which they only get a certain amount of time to prove themselves, or have to rely on call in to place your vote for the best.  Only a select few get to win their popularity contests only to make one album for 19 Records and have them dictate what songs they can sing.  Freedom in music is a forgotten thing and most you hear on major labels are forgotten the next day, their flavor of the day is like bubblegum, loses its flavor in a hurry and discarded only to be used as a trivia question years later.

Crap is in the mind and ears of the beholder.  My mom cannot stand anything Frank Sinatra, my dad hated MC5 and my brother couldn't stand Slim Whitman either. Being the black sheep of the family and forever committed to the forgotten 45's section at Woolworths I subjected myself to many types of music from almost 100 years so basically my tolerance to hearing anything twice in a day is low as it stands.  But when I hear two radio stations playing some old classic rock song from 40 years ago at the same time it's like fingernails on the chalkboard, just like the opening riff of Sweet Child Of Mine, it's an automatic push of the button to another station or a run to the can at work or giving Slick Willie the bird for caving in to the GOP of that 1996 TeleCom act that as far as I'm concerned killed music once and for all, more so than Limp Bizkit or Sony Music Rootkit virus of 2005 which CD sales jumped off the cliff and never return to the glorious highs it used to have before corporate greed took over.

Jerk Jams

1.  Hey Soul Sister-Train

This song is the all time worst piece of shit ever and you can thank the fucks at KDAT for them continuing to play this on a regular basis ever since it came out and I used to like Train, this song forever made me swear off Train once and for all with that pussy like hey, hey hey hey beginning and you couldn't escape this fucking song even on TV when they used it for a commercial about five times.  The folks at Super Cuts knew KDAT plays it while they're cutting my hair I will make a comment about hearing this shitty song once again.  In fact, this POS hold the distinction of being played four times in a row when I got my hair cut.  No wonder I went to Super Cuts only twice a year and even that wasn't good enough.  I think you know the story of me going to a pizza place in Lake Havasu City this summer and when this bile came on, I went to Del Taco instead.   The most hated song ever, and that's saying a lot considering number 2.

Broken Wings-Mr. Mister

Another overplayed 25 plus year song that KDAT continues to shove down our throats as well as KMRY and KMRY has been getting on my nerves of late with their limited playlist of songs that they claim they stole from my record collection.  To which they can have although I can attest that Broken Wings was never in my collection.  A Foreigner rip off to which Richard Page, who has done much better things before and since can live off royalties and make a decent living since somewhere in the world, this turd is playing.     1985 despite the crap you hear this past century was the all time worst year of radio music, example:

Take On Me-A Ha

Another overplayed new wave mondo bondo blow me that KDAT or your local new wave oldies station won't retire, I even turn the damn thing down when Family Guy is parody this although the video is still somewhat cutting edge back then but more cheese nowadays.  You basically wish the bad guys would have plundered the lead singer into submission if you had to hear this earworm eating your brain in the process.

Cruise-Florida Georgia Line featuring Nelly

This is country music 2013, autotuner up the ass, guest star rapper and odious lyrics about the good times that you'll never get cause you're not them.  FGL's manure has been country's biggest number 1 record since Walk On By and it may even the best if the bubba's making meth and moonshine continue to request this.  This duo may have also get the distinction of being a one hit wonder if they don't vary their formula since ensuring singles have bombed in the year that Cruise was unleashed unto the world. Unfortunate to tell you that in later classic country stations that this shit will be in regular rotation along with Waylon or Willie or Leroy Van Dyke.  Too bad you can't convert this into shit to spread on the fields, the corn would be high as the Sears Tower.

Piano Man-Billy Joel

I have Billy Joel albums going back as far as his 1974 release but I refuse to buy anything Greatest Hits from him since I have never liked this song which people consider Joel's theme song.  Many of a time when I was wasting Saturday Nights at DeSoda's that they would use this song to clear the bar before closing time and hearing half the crowd, drunk and wasted and not getting any nookie anyway warbling along to the chorus. And KMRY plays this as much as KDAT does.  No wonder I have the radio off.  Some songs I can warm up to after 40 years, Brown Eyed Girl but never Piano Man.  It just reeks of cynicism and a reason why I didn't buy anything from Billy Joel for years.

Boot Scoot Boogie-Brooks And Dunn

The precursor to the odious Florida Georgia Line, Brooks And Dunn rubbed me the wrong way on this garbage back in the barroom days of DeSodas and you couldn't escape it anywhere you went that was Country in the 1990s and I hated these guys for most of that decade, but they got better as the years went on and their best of Volume 2 has Red Dirt Road and There Ain't  Nothing About You  which managed to make the top ten a couple times. Another good thing about Greatest Hits 2, No Boot Scoot Boogie.

I Don't Want To Miss A Thing-Aerosmith

I love Aerosmith just as much as y'all do but when they got straight and gave up the drugs and started getting outside songwriters to keep them up to date they lost most of the original following  but getting a number 1 hit they had to enlist the services of the odious hack songster known as Diane Warren and Matt Serntic to produce it. They got the number 1 record but they forever lost their collective cool in the process.

Come With Me-Puff Daddy with Jimmy Page

Seems like Robert Plant was the smarter one in Led Zeppelin, whereas he continue to follow his heart and muse, Page sat and spin his tires for a good time in the 90s, hanging with The Black Crowes and then in desperation ended up doing a duet with Mr. P Diddy on the forgotten remake of Godzilla.  Even KRNA played this crap at that time before disowning it and making fun of it.  You don't get off that easy KRNA.  Page got some credo back on Walking Into Clarksdale and reuniting with Plant but that was short lived and a one off Led Zeppelin reunion of sorts.

Girl Scout Cookies-Ted Nugent

Nugent is what's wrong with Conservatives today. They hate Obama, love FOX news and bitch about their guns being taken away as well as their freedoms but that doesn't stop him from loving the teenagers he can now be a great grandfather to some of them.  Plus he hasn't done a listenable album since leaving Epic Records either, but Love Grenade might be the lowest of the low that he's ever done. Yes he's a killer guitar player but his songwriting is 5th grade mentality especially on this anti classic.  I can see why he likes Texas down there, you can have all the Viagra and love slaves all tied up for his pleasure. He's also considering a run for President. He can send your sons and daughters to wars and crap in his pants to get out of that.  Just like that in the past.  File under hypocrite.

Torn Between Two Lovers-Mary McGregor

To end this tripe, I am sure that I have missed a few other turds of note (Tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree, You're Having My Baby, Afternoon Delight, Stay Awhile (how she makes me quiver, how this song makes me puke), top forty radio of today) but as Robert Tepper says there's no easy way out of this and damn he's right.  This 1976 crapfest cheater song is about as low as it goes although the majority of Jerk Jams will guarantee you of me leaving your place in record time, even more so than the pushy Zia's clerks of Oracle Road.  This managed to hit number one here in the charts which shows you the mentality of Cedar Rapids and most of whoever managed to buy this shitty song, thankfully it was her only chart topper as she decided to wallow back into obscurity, only to pop up like a zit or a earwig when KMRY decides to torture us with this puker. Maybe the Bi Centennial was just as bad as 1985 in terms of crap music, McGregor had five other songs making the top 100 but I never heard any of them.  Thank God for that.

 http://diffuser.fm/overplayed-songs/

Another cranky music critic, Mike Gallucci shares his ten most overplayed songs as well and basically he's right about 80 percent of the time although he probably doesn't go to ball games and have to hear HEY HO LET'S GO, the opening of the Ramones' Blitz Keg Bop which used to be a fun song but not anymore. Going to a Kernels game done that in but at least the royalties coming in keeps Joey, Dee Dee and Johnny's gravesites free from weeds.  The Rolling Stones Start Me Up the same way, memorable at first but the NFL and classic rock radio overkilled it in more ways than one.

Again, I don't blame the artists in particular since most of the overplayed are songs that I do like unlike the jerk jams of this blog. Blame bad radio, blame corporations and blame a lack of developing talent on the majors which causes people to not stray from the overplayed songs of 30, 40 years ago.  And the new classics will not be heard on American Idol, nor The Voice, nor America's Got Talent but probably in somebody's garage pending if anybody is still playing new music or some new kids trying to work the same three chords into something memorable. Bob Lefsetz may have given up on new music, Cumulus may have given up on new music but I haven't.  I'm still continuing to mine uncharted territory in music of 100 years and blogging about it to a 100 readers per month.  You don't have to be stuck in Cumulus radio to be held hostage with a shitty playlist that KDAT or KHAK or KRNA throws at you and then for old times sake play Back In Black.  We deserve better but Corporations bought everything up on radio and there ya are with Mr Mister and Soul Sister again.

No wonder everything sucks.  And it's not better in Canada either: http://www.nodepression.com/profiles/blogs/why-regular-radio-sucks

5 comments:

TAD said...

Sorta suprised NOT to see Smoke on the Water, Hotel California & Stairway to Heaven in this list. But the 1's I recognize you nailed. More please...?

R S Crabb said...

I can handle 2 of the 3 you mentioned TAD but the ten I posted are songs I hate. Stay tuned for more. ;)

TAD said...

Crabbsta: The NO DEPRESSION post is interesting -- I could've done without her cat problems, but I'm sorry to see radio is just as bad (if not worse) in Canada as it is in the US -- could you imagine ALL BEYONCE ALL THE TIME?
WHEN is someone in the US gonna bite the bullet & present a CROSS-SECTION format that plays a little bit of everything -- like old '60s/'70s "pop" radio? I think it would work, I think it would be involving, I think it would be more than audio wallpaper & background music -- but of course I don't have any $$$ to make it happen.
Gotta love broadcasters -- they say they serve the community, but they're really just about locking-in enough of an audience to keep the advertisers happy, in the safest way possible. It's all bullshit & we deserve a LOT better.
...Wow, thanx for letting me rant, there. Didn't know I was writing a Guest Blog Post.
Yours for better listening....

TAD said...

Hey Crabby, thanx for the inspiration. Got my own blog post out of it....

R S Crabb said...

Yep Tad, she overdoes it with the cat bit but no matter where you go, radio stations pretty much stink Canada included. As always, post a rant or two if need be. I always like a different viewpoint. ;-)