Someone Hit John Mayer

by Stephanie Anderson

Legend tells us: “Video killed the radio star.” But, unlike many trusty camping axioms (i.e. “If your feet are cold, put on a hat.” and “A fed bear is a dead bear.”), this old standby about the music industry is utterly false. Video did not murder anything. The true culprit is the DJ.
Music, I think it can be said without much evidence provided, is an OLD thing. Thousands of years of Top Forty charts leave us with quite a selection (though in the beat-stick-on-rock days there was no Casey Casem). This day in age, you could listen to music your whole life, without ever repeating the same song, and still not hear everything.

Why then, WHY, do Radio DJs only play a list of 15 (give or take two) songs? I have run an professional field test on a number of occasions in various locations and discovered this: If you listen to any given radio station, in any city, for three hours, you will hear at least one song at least two times. If you try to compensate by switching stations periodically, you will hear those same songs more than twice in the given period. A law has apparently been decreed from the radio gods to all disc jockeys that playing any piece of music to death is, in fact, the ultimate goal.
This problem is only magnified if the song happens to be one you hate. Currently, “The Zephyr Song” by RHCP, is topping my list of ear numbing strikes per hour.

But, I personally would listen to nothing but the “puff of wind” song if it meant that I did not ever again have to hear “Your Body is a Wonderland” by John Mayer. (For a long time, I contended that the song was really titled “Thaddeus Wonderland,” probably because I had too much wax in my ears. Honestly, I think I liked “Thaddeus” better because it did not include the stupid imagery of a naked woman with “bubblegum toes,” and, it was also the name of a strange kid I sat behind in high school religion.) What’s worse than hearing this song sixteen times a day is that one of the DJs in the DC area has officially declared it the “Valentine’s Day Song of 2003.” What?!? I didn’t even know that Valentine’s had been officially declared a holiday, and now they’re using it as an excuse to fill my ears with “swim in a deep sea--- of blankets.”

I may become a pariah of pop culture, but I can’t carry on like this any longer. I am switching to the no-talk, easy listening jazz station and will even suffer through “Salsa Sunday.” (Except for popping in on a few of Casey’s “Long Distance Dedications.”) At least I will no longer have to listen to morning crews hawk restaurant gift certificates for whoever can call in and share the “zaniest story of a coworker stealing their lunch.”