Even though this blog encompasses much of the entertainment world, radio is a glaring omission. I don't listen to much radio anymore, as it doesn't seem to play the type of music I find compelling. Pop music, which I adored as a teenager (Culture Club, where have you gone?), is filled with vapid lyrics, questionable "musicians", and hits are determined by who is the most marketable and pretty, not the most talented. Some would say that I have gotten old and crotchety when it comes to devaluing the hip world of pop music. (I accidentally just now typed "poop" music, which somehow seemed more appropriate.) But I at least try and convince myself that I have just evolved musically, as I have in my life, to respect media that adds something of substance to my life.
My kids' room's radio happens to be set on a Top 40 type station, that they listen to for white noise while they fall asleep. When I lie down to coax my 3 year old into a nap, I am forced to listen to it. What strikes me most is not the quality of the music, (some of it is listenable) but the method in which "the machine" crams it down your throat. It would seem that their catalog consists of Daughtry's "Home" and that new crappy song by Nickelback about wanting to be a rock star. (It's nice that they still have goals.) The station alternates between those two songs, commercials, and DJs that drone on.
Luckily, here in the Twin Cities of Minnesota, we have our own musical Messiah, the Current 89.3 FM. It is a station that revels in its eclecticity (is that even a word?) and one can listen for hours and maybe even days before hearing a repeat. And I believe I can safely say they have never played Nickelback. So I was particulary pleased when I was tuned in while driving and heard one of my favorite songs from my favorite band. On came "PCH One" by the Pernice Brothers, and I did an aural double-take.
It befuddles me why the Pernice Brothers toil in relative obscurity when bands like Nickelback flourish. The PB offer some substance, some feeling, the complexity of which the younger crowd maybe just isn't ready for. I, for one, think Joe Pernice is a musical and literary genius; he knows not only how to make a great melody, but to craft the lyrics to accompany it. He combines the sublime with the sad, and if you are not careful, you find yourself sunnily humming along to an utterly depressing story.
So I guess what I am saying is check him out, buy his records, really listen to the stories he tells, and maybe, just maybe when I lay down for a nap with my 3 year old, I will hear his songs.
1 comment:
Amen on Joe Pernice and his "brothers". Out here in LA it is extremely rare to hear them on our much heralded public radio station KCRW. They are not only beyond the universe of Nickleback they are at least as good as (if not better than) the Decemberists or Modest Mouse or OK Go! But Nic Harcourt and company at KCRW almost NEVER play them. Pernice is the best (and maybe most prolific) American song writer of the past decade. Check him out folks, you don't know what you're missing.
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