Still Pretty Good Coincidence

The two “Come Sail Away”s almost lined up  

Jeremy has entered the world of high-stakes competitive regattas...or something.  

Not quite.  I have entered the world of listening to the radio. 

Close enough.  What's for lunch?  

Not long ago, there was a fairly surreal moment that occurred while I was listening to the radio.  I have a clock radio in my room that I listen to when I'm getting ready for my day.  On weekends, the local classic rock station broadcasts a nationally syndicated program instead of having somebody actually in the studio paying attention to what's going out over the airwaves.  In some cases, this produces some amusing results.  

I don't know an awful lot about how modern radio stations work, but it stands to reason that commercials are grouped into little blocks which normally can be played in between songs, most likely by way of a computer so as to leave the silent space between music, DJ prattle, and commercial to a minimum.  I also believe that the commercial blocks in syndicated programs are timed well in advance so that individual stations broadcasting the program can schedule their commercials and leave everything up to technology while still allowing for local advertising in national shows.  

It should also be known that not long ago, the classic rock band Styx was scheduled to perform a concert at a local venue.  One of their most famous songs is the power ballad "Come Sail Away."  It pales in comparison to "Mr. Roboto," of course, but that's beside the point here.  

So, I'm listening to the syndicated radio show, and the program was featuring all songs about water.  Songs about oceans, and rivers, and lakes, and oxford commas, and boats.  One of the songs they decided to play for this program was Styx's "Come Sail Away."  All well and good.  

The local station, however, screwed up.  

A commercial break started playing during the same time that the syndicated show was playing, and since nobody was in the studio paying attention to what was happening, the entire series of commercials played out right along with the song that was already playing.  

In a truly wonderful moment of radio broadcasting, one of the commercials was an advertisement for the local Styx show, which featured, among other things, short clips from various Styx songs so that listeners could be informed as to some of the potential library of songs that would be played at the concert.  As you might imagine, "Come Sail Away" was one of the songs featured in clip form.  

It would have been absolutely amazing for the mistakenly-played commercial clip of the song to line up perfectly with the full song being broadcast, but that didn't quite happen.  However, the two versions of the song were only off from each other by about 5 seconds.  Still pretty remarkable.  

I didn't end up going to the concert because I'd been informed that Styx no longer plays "Mr. Roboto" in their concerts, so there didn't seem to be any point left. 

The TV Guy Probably Does It Too

I don’t like when the radio weather person calls me “Sonny”


Uhm...Jeremy...I don't think that's...


It happens fairly frequently, and I find it to be at least a little condescending.  The weather person on the local radio station which is playing on my alarm clock when it wakes me up will come on and say, "Weather today, Sonny.  High of 50."  Why are they calling me Sonny?  Are they just referring to all of the listeners as Sonny without regard to age or gender?  It's awfully rude.


They're not talking to you, you imbecile...


So then who's weather are they forecasting?  


I give up.


I would like to petition the local weather person to stop referring to me as Sonny when giving my weather.  A simple "Jeremy" would suffice.  Or, failing that, don't feel obligated to mention me at all.  Just give out the weather as if there were more people than me listening, and leave the name calling to lesser people.  Thank you. 

Others Look Forward To "Rock Lobster"

It’s a little comforting to know that “Mr. Roboto” still gets some radio play  

That is a pretty welcome change from more Taylor Swift and non-stop Christmas music.   

Radio sucks. 

The concept is fairly simple: Radio station plays music that people want to listen to, causing people to listen to it.  Businesses and politicians want listeners to hear their advertisements, so they pay for commercial time on radio stations with demographics appropriate for their goods and services.  Lather, Rinse, Repeat.  

Reality is a little more complicated than that.  Many people have moved away from traditional radio broadcasts in favor of internet-based radio, which has a very similar model, and satellite radio, which features fewer commercials and more cursing, but is a paid subscription service.  Completely aside from all that, traditional radio is now operated by a relatively few large entities who get paid not only from advertisers, but by "record labels" whose job it is to tell radio stations what music people want to listen to.  I put the words "record labels" in quotes because roughly none of them actually make records anymore, which leaves no place to put the labels.  Also, there are a ludicrous number of record labels out there, and it seems like the sole requirement for starting a record label is a statement that you are starting a record label.  

Record labels make money when people buy new music.  Sure, people buy old music all the time, but at a significantly lower rate over time.  The market tails off incredibly quickly, so what the industry is interested in is new stuff.  Seriously...how many people do you know that bought a copy of "The Emancipation of Mimi" last week?  None?  Well, it was the best selling album of 2005.  How about "The Fame Monster"?  2010.  But lots and lots of people bought those when they came out.  

Because of this perfectly reasonable nature, record labels put undue pressure on radio stations to play new music, tell people that it's good, in order to get listeners to go out and buy stuff.  It's something of a conspiracy, but one that most people are perfectly okay with.  The "Top 40" list is constantly updating, but are any of the songs on there really among the 40 best songs of all time?  Nope.  But they're the most popular because we're told they're the most popular.  Who tells us this?  The only people in the world aside from the artist themselves who stand to make money by having a song be popular.  They might be a little biased.  

There are also certain radio stations who play older music for the sake of listener nostalgia.  "Classics" and "Oldies" stations really don't make a lot of money from record labels, so they get to ride on the financial coattails of "Hits" stations and rely more on advertiser revenue for their livelihood.  These stations have entire generations of music to pick from when deciding what's popular.  They have statistics and polls and demographics to make informed playlist decisions.  These stations, by necessity, end up leaving out an awful lot of songs that were once popular, but don't draw the numbers they once did.  So, it's a rare and special treat when an old song, forgotten by the radio ages, gets airtime again.  

Such as when one of these ultra-low budget radio stations decides to skeleton-crew an entire holiday weekend by sorting their entire playlist alphabetically and pressing "Play."  I happened to be listening fairly late in the "M"'s when Mr. Roboto came on.  I was pleased and really have only one possible thing to say to the radio station.  

Domo Arigato.