Monday, October 26, 2009

An open letter to Bay Area radio stations

Dear Live 105, 104.5 KFOG, and 106.1 KMEL,

Due to some sort of electrical glitch in my car stereo, yours are the only radio stations I am able to listen to. Hence, I've heard every song you all seem to play in an hour long rotation every time I drive to or from classes. I've had it with the repetition and the lack of playlist imagination. I'm prepared to bail on you once and for all if my demands are not met. Here's what I want:

*Live 105: Please do not play the following Sublime songs ever again: "Santeria", "What I Got", "Caress me Down", Wrong Way" or "Doin' Time" ever again. The last song in that list is especially out of place seeing as that its now almost November and clearly not summer time when the livin's easy. I mean, c'mon...Sublime was a most excellent band and they had WAY better tunes that these. Finding a few shouldn't be all that difficult, if you actually tried...or cared.

*And while you're at it, Guns N' Roses and Metallica DO NOT belong on the same station as Death Cab for Cutie, The Cure and Weezer. Seriously, pick one genre and stick with it! Are you an alternative station that plays cutting edge modern rock or a station that will mix in the redneck stuff just for variety?

*KFOG, this one's for you, but not exclusively because Live 105 is guilty as well...PLEASE, for the love of decent music, can ya'll retire the Bob Marley songs already? You may ask yourself, has anyone made ANY respectable reggae since Bob Marley? The answer is probably, however you all seem to think that Bob is the end-all be-all of this annoying genre of music and play the same five songs over and over and over. Again, Bob had quite an extensive repertoire...dig a little and give "Three Little Birds" and "Buffalo Soldier" a freaking rest! Oh and Live 105, you can also retire Damien Marley's "Welcome to Jamrock". If I hear the lyrics "Out in the street/they call it murrrrrrrrrrrder" one more time, I might lose it.

*A number of artists have covered Bob Marley songs over the years. One that comes to mind is Annie Lennox, who did a lovely cover of "Waiting in Vain". It really doesn't sound a whole lot like the original because Miss Lennox was smart enough to cut the reggae beat out of it. Perhaps this is why I enjoy this song so much. Anyways, there's a ton of stuff like this out there. Look, mmmmkay.

*Alright KMEL, you're up. As the best choice for hip hop and R&B in the Bay Area, I PLEAD with you never to play "LOL Smiley Face" by Trey Songz again. The lyrics are astoundingly asinine: "Shorty sent a TwitPic/Said come get this/L-O-L smiley face, L-O-L smiley face". The first time I heard this song I had to wonder whose fucking idea was it to actually produce this piece of shit? I can't believe someone at Atlantic Records didn't slap Trey Songz upside his fool head when he pitched this idea to them. Its quite literally the LAMEST song I have ever heard. The previous owner of this title: "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas. I didn't think it could get worse than that...but I should know better. It can always get worse. Fuck me.

* And while we're talking about crap, what exactly is an "Ice cream paint job" anyways? God, has hip hop really been reduced to this kind of suckage!? Can't you all just replay some old Tribe Called Quest or De La Soul? Somewhere, Tupac and Biggie are rolling over in their graves.

* Overall, all of you, PLEASE try to expand your playlists. There was a time where I was in the car between 5 and 5:30pm daily. I knew that I could hear "The Pretender" by Foo Fighters on Live 105, "Jackie and Diane" (Really!?! How is this still on the air?!) on KFOG and "Here I Am" by Rick Ross on KMEL. EVERY DAY. The same songs at the same time. It went on like this for about a month. The complete lack of interest in actually playing something different or effort on the part of the "DJs" was not lost on me. There's SO much music out there in your respective genres. Please try to broaden your horizons and play something not so common and sucky and expected. Or else.

Love,

The Enforcer

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