The perils of Classic Rock Radio
I was listening to the classic rock station during the weekend, which is when the station does its “Rock Block”s, ie: 4 songs per artist. They were playing Rush… come to song #4, and…. I hear a horrifying piece of prog rock, a long instrumental introduction that wheedled over itself. Assembling my knowledge of Rush and how the band developed their style and honed in on their theme, and assuming that this was all there was to the song, I asked the question in my head: “All good and fine, but what does this have to do with Ayn Rand?”
Then the lyrics came out. Basically skip your way to the “We are the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx” line and I gotta say, This does not rock.
If I’m being given a single hit for a dystopian future on a bad rock concept album, please give me Styyx’s Mr. Roboto.
None of which is to say I didn’t want to hear that awful Rush album. The basic problem with classic rock radio, aside from the fact that hearing a dj call himself “Marty Party” demeans both the dj and the listener, is this selection of songs. There’s a large section of songs that I don’t get, didn’t want to hear the first time and don’t want to hear again. Simply put, I do not have a clue what this “Double Vision” that Foreigner is talking about, or how the metaphor they’re proporting to sing elicits any emotion from any listener out there.
Then there’s a large section of songs that I’ve heard so many times I never want to hear again so long as I live… not necessarily bad songs– but I can’t tell any more. The Classic Rock station has played the song three or four times a day for the past thirty years, and I’d just as soon not hear them again. The trouble here is opinions vary… I like all of Queen’s singles. I don’t ever need to hear “Hollywood Nights” by Bob Segar ever again. (Note: I was going to write up a list of about a dozen “Songs I Never Need to Hear Again”, but I scrapped it.)
I wonder if it’s possible for classic rock stations to expand their playlists. Horizontally, as in: play the same number of Beatles songs (or whatever artist) per day, but toss in a few that nobody really expects to hear on the radio.
But maybe that disrupts the basic rhthym of the workday. The classic rock radio listener wants familiarity. I will only tune in to “Rock Block Weekends”, because — I hate the most familiar Cheap Trick song, “I Want You To Want Me”, and like all the other Cheap Trick minor radio hits. 80 percent of the time otherwise, when announcing that they’re going to play “Cheap Trick”, the classic rock dj will play this damned song. As for Rush… I would rather hear and be amused to death by their horrifying “Temples of Syrinx” than to hear “Tom Sawyer” again. (As for the other Rush… What does Rush’s choice of bumper theme song have to do with his Right-wing Politics?
(All of this is a curious hodge. Quote-in-quote “Alternative Rock” is now the mainstream of rock, more or less, and have sort of backed its history back to British Punk of the late 1970s. Was it “London Calling”? I don’t know.)