Showing posts with label radio playlists. Show all posts

Thursday, August 19, 2021

Building The Modern Alternative Canon

If we had enough cash laying around, we'd love to invest in the construction of two new formats of streaming and FM stations -- two formats whose absense from the larger cultural dialogue has left us feeling a depressing void of sorts.

These two formats are "alternative rock" and "alternative pop." And no, neither of these currently exists in any form despite Billboard or Spotify's current definition of "alternative." There is virtually no hub for anyone seeking easy access to either.

Considering the definition of "alternative" as it applies to music genre descriptors...

1. In its originally intended primary definition as a genre or subgenre descriptor, the term refers to its broadest definition as "any music outside of the popular mainstream."

2. Its 2nd definition might have been its most widely used. Popularized between the early to mid '90s, the word "alternative" as a standalone genre refers to a "artists eliglble for commercial radio airplay that stylistically derive from non-mainstream artists or genres, or artists who had previously spent a prolonged era of their career resting outside of the mainstream."

It's this 2nd definition that helps explain how Z100 and similar Top 40 stations, between the 3 year stretch of mid-1993 to mid-1996, could get away with adopting a decent fraction of their playlists from Buzz Clips or the more "alternative" areas of the loud rock spectrum, and still accurately use the descriptor even though Z100 was and still is as mainstream as radio gets. Browsing their top spins of 1995, we right away notice "Cordoroy" by Pearl Jam at #4, "Plowed" by Sponge at #12, and "Sick of Myself" by Matthew Sweet at #26. These are tracks that don't necessarily scream "the mid '90s equivalent of Imagine Dragons" as much as something like, say Dave Matthews Band, spun all throughout that year alongside Mariah Carey, Crystal Waters, and Madonna.

We're not opposed to fluid genre descriptors that evolve over time. But the definition of "alternative" as it currently applies to Billboard charts, iHeartRadio, SiriusXM, playlisting, etc, has never felt quite so intertwined with the mainstream. A decent 90% of it directly derives sonically from some combination of The Black Keys, The Arcade Fire's "Wake Up," and The Shins' Wincing The Night Away -- the exact combination currently exploited by Imagine Dragons, et al (not to mention soundalikes used in commercials for brands like Jeep, Cadillac, Red Lobster, Target, etc).

Bearing this in mind, a true rock-centered alternative should primarily feature artists who don't sound anything like the afforementioned few.

And just the same, we're incapable of understanding why there's no hub centered around beloved acclaimed pop artists like Carly Rae Jepsen, Charli XCX, or Kim Petras, nor can we understand how so many #1 hits from black artists have been continually excluded from the past 7 years of Sirius and iHeart's Top 40 playlists. Granted, there was certainly a racist divide on Top 40 stations throughout the '90s, with "Gangsta's Paradise" (also from '95) as probably the best example from that entire decade. That said, it was nothing like this, when a track as ubiquitous and beloved as "Old Town Road" barely recieved spins on any of Ryan Seacrest's syndicated iHeart shows.

We threw together these two lists to offer a proposed shift in the modern canon that we're certain will get ignored. Year after year, we keep growing more fearful that so many great tracks from the past decade will inevitably get lost in the noise and forgotten. And all the while, we're growing more sad to hear grossly inaccurate repeated insistance about the death of rock and the current lack of excitement in modern pop singles.

In other words, we're frustrated that we keep getting "ok boomer" thrown in our faces, when the reality of the situation is that we've been paying painfully close attention.

The 7-year mark is entirely arbitrary, but we felt a stylistic shift of sorts that began just before Fall 2014, so we went with it. These both represent August 2014 to the present:

Modern Alternative Rock Canon

1. Turnstile "Mystery"
2. Big Thief "Not"
3. Mindforce "Excalibur"
4. Windhand "Grey Garden"
5. Palehound "Healthier Folk"
6. Alex G "Proud"
7. Fury "Angels Over Berlin"
8. Surface To Air Missive "Get In The Truck"
9. Guided By Voices "Overloaded"
10. Flasher "Who's Got Time"
11. Paramore "Hard Times"
12. Power Trip "Executioner's Tax"
13. The Chats "Smoko"
14. Homeshake "Heat"
15. Dilly Dally "Purple Rage"
16. Kevin Krauter "Pretty Boy"
17. Soccer Mommy "Circle The Drain"
18. Two Inch Astronaut "Foulbrood"
19. Sleep "Marijuanaut's Theme"
20. Rosali "Pour Over Ice"
21. Ovlov "Halfway Fine"
22. Beak> "We Can Go"
23. Jocko "Muddy Waters"
24. Mitski "My Body's Made Of Crushed Little Stars"
25. Aye Nako "Particle Mace"
26. Good Morning "Warned You"
27. Turnstile "Holiday"
28. Big Thief "UFOF"
29. Negative Scanner "Shoplifter"
30. Chris Brokaw "The Heart of Human Trafficking"
31. Otoboke Beaver "Love Is Short"
32. Hatchie "Obsessed"
33. The Rubs "Wrong Right Girl"
34. Ex Hex "Don't Wanna Lose"
35. Curse Word "Big Fingers"
36. No Age "Send Me"
37. Charly Bliss "Glitter"
38. Young Guv "Every Flower I See"
39. Rihanna "Same Ol' Mistakes"
40. Hum "Step Into You"
41. Ringo Deathstarr "Heavy Metal Suicide"
42. Sheer Mag "What You Want"
43. Sweeping Promises "Hunger For A Way Out"
44. Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats "Runaway Girls"
45. Two Inch Astronaut "Good Behavior"
46. Angel Olsen "Shut Up Kiss Me"
47. Beak> "Brean Down"
48. Narrow Head "Night Tryst"
49. Weezer "King of the World"
50. Stove "Dusty Weather"
51. Geronimo! "Spitting In The Ocean"
52. Skating Polly "Hail Mary"
53. Unknown Mortal Orchestra "American Guilt"
54. Glitterer "Destiny"
55. Courtney Barnett & Kurt Vile "Over Everything"
56. Drug Church "But Does It Work"
57. Maneka "Never Nowhere"
58. Code Orange "Bleeding In The Blur"
59. Yuck "Hold Me Closer"
60. Surface To Air Missive "Going Out"
61. Tenement "I'm Your Super Glue"
62. Whitney "No Woman"
63. Three Knee Deep "Hackin Of Da Mindz"
64. 100 Gecs "Money Machine"
65. Nilufer Yanya "In Your Head"
66. Turnstile "I Don't Wanna Be Blind"
67. Horisont "Electrical"
68. Tame Impala "Stranger In Moscow"
69. Pissed Jeans "Ignorecam"
70. Big Ups "Meet Where We Are"
71. Shellac "Dude Incredible"
72. No Age "Popper"
73. Lindsay Buckingham and Christine McVie "In My World"
74. Home Blitz "Final Decay"
75. Nnamdi "Rage"
76. I Hate Sex "I Fucking Hate Sports"
77. Doe "My Friends"
78. Ringo Deathstarr "Once Upon A Freak"
79. The Rubs "Impossible Dream"
80. Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou "Hollywood"
81. Rolling Blackouts CF "Talking Straight"
82. Nudie Mag "She's A Star"
83. Masterpiece Machine "Rotting Fruit"
84. Two Inch Astronaut "Andy's Progress Report"
85. Xetas "The Gaze"
86. Bartees Strange "Boomer"
87. Beach House "Lemon Glow"
88. Potty Mouth "Long Haul"
89. Lil Peep "Awful Things"
90. MGMT "In The Afternoon"
91. Holy Serpent "For No One"
92. Jason Loewenstein "Machinery"
93. Silicone Prairie "Song For The Eagles To Sing"
94. Machine Gun Kelly "Bloody Valentine"
95. Satan's Satyrs "Ain't That Lovin' You Baby"
96. David Bowie "Killing A Little Time"
97. CCR Headcleaner "Tear Down The Wall"
98. Lumpy & The Dumpers "Flush Em"
99. Parquet Courts "Wide Awake"
100. Slipknot "Spiders"
101. Superheaven "I've Been Bored"

Modern Alternative Pop Canon

1. Rihanna "Needed Me"
2. Maren Morris "80s Mercedes"
3. Kanye West f/ Kendrick Lamar "No More Parties In LA"
4. Fetty Wap "Trap Queen"
5. Carly Rae Jepsen "Boy Problems"
6. Kacey Musgraves "High Horse"
7. D'Angelo "1000 Deaths"
8. Rihanna f/ Drake "Work"
9. Charli XCX "Boys"
10. Ariana Grande "Thank U Next"
11. Kendrick Lamar "King Kunta"
12. Playboi Carti "Magnolia"
13. Ella Mai "Boo'd Up"
14. Danny Brown "Combat"
15. Pop Smoke "Dior"
16. Drake "Hotline Bling"
17. Valee "Womp Womp"
18. Ty Dolla Sign f/ Babyface "Solid"
19. DaBaby f/ Offset "Babysitter"
20. Solange "Cranes In The Sky"
21. Jennifer Lopez f/ French Montana "I Luh Ya Papi"
22. Migos f/ Lil Uzi Vert "Bad and Boujiee"
23. Rae Sremmurd "Black Beatles"
24. Sedona "More Love"
25. Carly Rae Jepsen "Emotion"
26. Ariana Grande "No Tears Left To Cry"
27. Taylor Swift "Style"
28. Janet Jackson "No Sleeep"
29. Disclosure f/ Fatoumata Diawara "Douha"
30. Tkay Maidza "U-Huh"
31. Rihanna "Bitch Better Have My Money"
32. Maren Morris "My Church"
33. A Tribe Called Quest f/ Elton John & Busta Rhymes "Solid Wall of Sound"
34. Mahmundi "Imagen"
35. Vic Mensa "Down On My Luck"
36. Tinashe f/ Schoolboy Q "2 On"
37. Kim Petras "I Don't Want it At All"
38. Domo Genesis f/ Anderson Paak "Dapper"
39. Kevin Gates "2 Phones"
40. Nick Jonas "Jealous"
41. Chance The Rapper f/ Knox Fortune "All Night"
42. Lil Uzi Vert "XO Tour Lif3"
43. DNCE "Cake By The Ocean"
44. Drake & Future "Big Rings"
45. Steve Lacy "Playground"
46. Ariana Grande f/ The Weeknd "Love Me Harder"
47. Thundercat "Dragonball Durag"
48. Miguel "The Valley"
49. Ty Dolla Sign f/ Jagged Edge "Straight Up"
50. Joey Purp f/ Chance The Rapper "Girls At"
51. Lil Mosey "Blueberry Faygo"
52. Dej Loaf "Try Me"
53. Nnamdi "Let Go Of My Ego"
54. Lil Yachty "Bring It Back"
55. Denzel Curry "Ricky"
56. Mason Ramsey "Famous"
57. Rihanna "Sex With Me"
58. Rico Nasty "Block List"
59. Lil B "Wasup Jojo"
60. Loona / Odd Eye Circle "Girl Front"
61. Charli XCX "Enemy"
62. Dornik "Stand In Your Line"
63. Prettymuch f/ French Montana "No More"
64. Freddie Gibbs & Madlib "Thuggin'"
65. 6ix9ine f/ Fetty Wap "KEKE"
66. Yaeji "Drink I'm Sippin On"
67. Roddy Ricch "The Box"
68. Schoolboy Q f/ BJ The Chicago Kid "Studio"
69. Willow "Wait A Minute"
70. Jorja Smith x Preditah "On My Mind"
71. Hatchie "Without A Blush"
72. Little Mix "Black Magic"
73. Missy Elliott f/ Pharrell "WTF"
74. The 1975 "If You're Too Shy Let Me Know"
75. Migos "T-Shirt"
76. Lil Yachty "Lady In Yellow"
77. Carly Rae Jepsen "Run Away With Me"
78. Tyler The Creator "What's Good"
79. Dua Lipa "Levitating"
80. Thundercat "Them Changes"
81. Grimes "My Name Is Dark"
82. Nelly Furtado "Magic"
83. The Weeknd "Can't Feel My Face"
84. The Boyboy West Coast "U Was At The Club"
85. Lizzo "Boys"
86. Kanye West "Lift Yourself"
87. Bali Baby "Backseat"
88. Lil B "Ride (Hold Up)"
89. DaBaby "Suge"
90. Lil Nas X "Old Town Road"
91. CZ Wang "Just Off Wave"
92. Stefflon Don "Lil Bitch (Intro)"
93. YG "Gimmie Got Shot"
94. Kodak Black "When Vultures Cry"
95. Kids See Ghosts "4th Dimension"
96. Romy "Lifetime"
97. Drake "0 to 100 / The Catchup"
98. Sheck Wes "Mo Bamba"
99. Billie Eilish "Bad Guy"
100. Travis Scott "Sicko Mode"
101. RMR "Rascal"

Monday, February 15, 2021

The New Shit Radar: Money Plane Edition

Focusing on the positives, right? Is that what we're supposed to be doing?

We'll probably whip up a Hot Mix 2020 sometime soon, but New Shit Radars are faster so let's just do this instead.

This month's New Shit Radar is sponsored by the 2020 blockbuster Money Plane starring Kelsey Grammar, Joey Lawrance, and Edge -- who incidentally also won the 2021 Royal Rumble. Incidentally, Kelsey Grammar's character in Money Plane (for unknown reasons) refers to himself as "The Rumble," which means that Edge conquered The Rumble twice in the past year, which is probably a first in the history of humanity. So we supposed it's been a good few months for Edge.

We dedicated our most recent New Music playlist to Money Plane:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0PunOFtcUdbWpI1t6ChS9p?si=NzYw_EzHQPuue6lQlEwcyA

Sedona Loves The Sea Machine
Before Sedona rebranded as a band, her ultra-earwormy cosplay of Madonna's first album was almost definitely one of the best songs from the past 24 months that seemingly no one has heard or talked about.

This horrible trend of dope music getting buried by music writers is beyond old. But that Phoebe Bridgers tho -- her bland unmemorable "rock" is entirely worth encompassing an entire halfweek of CIA-planted Twitter debate. Totally worthy.

We're happy to report that Sedona's new track is dope as fuck, and if the intro is any indication, she apparently loves the Sea Machine pedal as much as we do.

Heele Will Drop New Heat Next Week
The new track is called "A New Friend" and it's coming your way a week from today! In the meantime, enjoy their latest:

Phife Dawg Lives On, New Album Coming Soon
Posthumous Phife Dawg album will be arriving later this Spring. We kinda love the new track "Nutshell Part 2" -- although whenever we hear Busta Rhymes' old-guy-swag, it gives us the same feeling we had watching Keanu in Bill and Ted 3. Try to smile a little bit more in your middle age, fellas. It's not that bad.

Potty Mouth Is Back With Some Non-Album-Track Fire
"Let Go" is their latest. We like the weird synths in this one.

We Like A Non-Weezer Song That's Currently Charting On Billboard Alt Rock Radio Airplay
This is actually huge news since we hated every song that placed in the Billboard Alternative Songs Year End chart with the exception of the admittedly decent "Bloody Valentine" by Machine Gun Kelly. (And if we were forced to choose another at gunpoint, "If You're Too Shy (Let Me Know)" by The 1975 isn't the most unfortunate thing we've ever heard although that's really pushing it.)

There's also a currently charting Weezer single that's ok featuring a string quartet replacing Rivers Cuomo's and Brian Bell's guitars. It's no "King Of The World," but it's fine.

The non-Weezer single that we like is from the unfortunately named I Don't Know How But They Found Me, a two-piece led by the guitarist who replaced Ryan Ross when he left Panic At The Disco in 2009. Accordingly, it reminds us of a bunch of hi-fi alternative radio songs from 2008-2009 -- the era of La Roux's "Bulletproof" and Passion Pit and 3Oh!3 and MGMT and that band who wasn't bad but for some bizarre reason decided it would be a good idea to name themselves Black Kids.

Due to its odd 2009-non-throwback nature, it helped us realize that label consolidation and Youtube and SiriusXM and Spotify and poptimism and American Idol and "music journalists having the final say on the revised canon" have done wonders as far as guiding music to the point where literally nothing is willing to change and charting music sounds exactly the same as it did in the late 2000s. By early 2001, the world was already fully immersed in the first era of "80s nostalgia capitalism," and nothing remotely close to that equivalent is occurring in 2021. Because nothing has changed at all -- long term or short term. Four months from now, the same songs will be charting in roughly the same positions. Four years from now, the same artists will be charting with different songs in the same positions. And yea, this is obviously unsustainable, unless the music business wants to die. In which case, they're doing a tremendous job of self-sabotage.

Anyway, we'll probably place this one somewhere in the Hot Mix 2020 and we can complain more when the time arrives. We're just surprised that labels and promoters are still willing to invest in singles that are actually memorable upon the first listen. And hey, they even have a Bandcamp:

Melvins Have A Weird New Song Called "Fuck You" And Jon Anderson From Yes Has A New Song Called "Go Screw Yourself"
Songs like these are the ones that make the most sense right now. We're happy anyone else gets it.

New Teenage Wrist Album Is Good
We were hoping they would continue sounding like Live's Throwing Copper LP (see 2016's "Stoned Alone") but they have upgraded their sound n stuff and it's good.

After Hours Top 20 Most Played -- Week Of February 8th
For once, here's a chart that doesn't entirely suck. Tell your friends all about it:

WXCI AFTER HOURS TOP 20 (Week of 2/8/2021)
This week	ARTIST Title	Links
1	EYEHATEGOD High Risk Trigger	Youtube
2	EMMA RUTH RUNDLE & THOU Hollywood	thou.bandcamp.com/ track/hollywood
3	GLITTERER Are You Sure?	glitterer.bandcamp.com/ track/are-you-sure
4	BEDWETTER Headboard	Youtube
5	WEEZER All My Favorite Songs	Youtube
6	DAVID NANCE The Merchandise	davidnance.bandcamp.com/ track/the-merchandise
7	SOMERSET THROWER Accelerate Now	bbbrecords.bandcamp.com/ track/accelerate-now
8	GLITTERER Didn't Want It	glitterer.bandcamp.com/ track/didnt-want-it
9	MINDFORCE Reign Of Terror	bbbrecords.bandcamp.com/ track/reign-of-terror
10	ANXIOUS More Than A Letter	bbbrecords.bandcamp.com/ track/more-than-a-letter
11	MELVINS The Great Good Place	melvinsofficial.bandcamp.com/ track/the-great-good-place
12	DAVID NANCE When The Covers Come Off	davidnance.bandcamp.com/ track/when-the-covers-come-off
13	THIRDFACE Villains!	thirdface.bandcamp.com/ track/villains-2
14	CHEVELLE Self Destructor	Youtube
15	ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER No Nightmares	oneohtrixpointnever.bandcamp .com/ track/no-nightmares
16	BAARDVADER Walking On The Moon	baardvader.bandcamp.com/ track/walking-on-the-moon
17	HIGHER POWER King Of My Domain	Youtube
18	EMMA RUTH RUNDLE & THOU Into Being	thou.bandcamp.com/ track/into-being
19	CODE ORANGE Autumn and Carbine	Youtube
20	HUM Step Into You	humband.bandcamp.com/ track/step-into-you

Saturday, January 30, 2021

More 2020 End-Of-Year Stuff | The Dime Store Hegemon Radio Hour's "Best Of 2020" Records

Our end-of-year shenanigans might commence by the end of the weekend or at least by Feb 1st.

Our methodology has grown less and less coherent over time, but these days it's mostly pulled from a bunch of other shows and lists that we compile throughout December:

1. MTVZ's Top 100 of 2020 Video Countdown -- MTV used to air their top 100 videos of the year on New Years Eve and then reaired on New Years Day, and now they don't anymore, so we started doing it for them, hypothetically imagining their inclusions if the tone and branding were similar to how they appeared throughout "The '90s," a.k.a. the only calendar decade when MTV aired one of these specials every year. Most of the pop and rap that we enjoy or that seemed ubiquitous throughout a given year will appear here, as long as the songs had videos.

2. WXCI After Hours' Top 102 of 2020 -- This is our attempt at re-imagining an "alternative rock" radio format that actually sounds like a rock station, focusing on metal, loud rock, and "alternative" in its broadest possible definition. We started the overnight block on Memorial Day weekend 2019 and hopefully it will last throughout 2021.

3. Late Night Noise "Best Of 2020" Parts 1 and 2 -- This is our Monday night show focusing on "stuff that sounds like drugs or satan." It's not really a "noise music" show despite its title; abrasive 25-minute-long Merzbow tracks appear only rarely. Instead, we play "noisy" stuff -- more abrasive and often absurd metal or hardcore, the weirdest and most warped experimental stuff we can find, and anything lofi or outsider or "found." For the sake of variance, about 10% of the show does not fall into these categories.

To locate the stuff that appears in these little projects, we typically check on a multitude of sources.

A few that come to mind right now include the category-sorting options at Rate Your Music, although we suspect they got overtaken by /mu/ nerds throughout the past 5 or 6 years. We also usually browse Post-Trash - probably the only consistantly updated websource that focuses on current rock music. Matt Korvette from Pissed Jeans has a monthly updated blog that we love. ILM's annual Tracks and Albums polls have been useful in the past for finding non-charting pop and rap, and we still consider them a resource worth exploring, although their recommendations since 2017 have grown decreasingly aligned with our preferences. Same goes for The Singles Jukebox, but it's worth putting time into the research when we finally find something that rules.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

For the past half-decade, we were blessed to recieve sneak peeks of The Dime Store Hegemon Radio Hours's "best of" lists. The show airs Wednesday nights on KONR in Anchorage, Alaska, and we'd be lying if we didn't admit that it's among the most consistantly helpful resources for radio, MTVZ, and our end-of-year lists.

We're not sure why we only thought of this now, but we asked permission to post the entire list here. So let's "let her rip" as they say.

An abridged version of the list was aired on the show's January 13th edition:

Playist: https://spinitron.com/KONR/pl/12412013/Dime-Store-Hedgemon-Radio-Hour

Here's a copy+paste:

2020 Records (this is a lot)

This is a lot of records. Yikes. Make sure and check out the highlighted ones if you can, but also all of them.

David Nance - Staunch Honey – I can’t believe how good this record is.

Bonnie "Prince" Billy - I Made A Place – I love this record. It’s so positive and cozy and insular while still being weird or at least strange.
https://bonnieprincebilly.bandcamp.com/album/i-made-a-place

Thiago Nassife – Mente – This music is weird and I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like French African synth post-punk but also not. I love it. It’s extremely vibe music but then also it isn’t. It is possible that, because I have never listened to a Talking Heads album, this music is just normal to everyone who has. Some of it sounds like T. Rex too.

The Spits – VI – the Spits do it again.

Nothing – The Great Dismal – I sent this to you already. It’s also a good shoegaze record but I still think the Wednesday one is better.

Shrinkwrap Killers – Feral Rats Have Become Our Only Friends – poppy- punk rock that is definitely Spits influenced but not dumb like they are (in a good way).

Panopticon - Live Migration – This is a live black metal album that sounds better than most regular black metal albums. What an incredible group.

Limousine Beach - Stealin' Wine + 2 Single – Just some good rockin’ baby. Dudes from Carousel. So glammy. Sorta sounds like the Sweet or something?

Rebel Wizard - Magickal Mystical Indifference – this might be lame ass poser shit but I love the song (title) “The Mind Is Not Your Friend.” Kinda stonery music with some industrial elements that has good samples throughout.

Mike Polizze - Long Lost Solace Find – this is the dude from Purling Hiss (right?) and Kurt Vile plays guitar. It’s that type of music (singer-songwriter) but in a good way.

Fyzical - Demo 2020 – dumb music that rules -

Boris – NØ – this is one of my favorite records of theirs – I either like when they make weird pop music or punk.

Home Blitz - All Through The Year – this album has the coolest song of the year on it.
[Note: Pretty sure this is referring to "Final Decay."]

Geld - Beyond the Floor – this is insane music and I love it. They put a few slower jams on this record. It’s psychedelic dbeat which is like, a dream come true for me. So nasty sounding

Hum – Inlet – duh!

namatay sa ingay - Ang Talim ng Galit – I like this, especially the song TNT. For a punk band to make a 4 song record that is this varied, I think that’s cool

P22 - Human Snake – I think this came out on Dean Spunt’s label? It’s sure weird and it’s pretty cool.

Vintlechkeit - Svartskogen Svartwinter etc. – This is very cool black metal and ambient stuff. Very wintery

The Cowboy - WiFi on the Prairie – weird punk that is slightly unhinged but also quite melodic and interesting

Cirith Ungol - Forever Black – I feel like I don’t know enough about how to talk about metal or the different types of metal. This to me just seems like “good metal” in a varied way and it’s ok that the band is LOTR themed because it’s good.

Tidiane Thiam – Siftorde – this record sounds like it was recorded around a campfire but also features the most insane guitar playing. This is a record that doesn’t really lend itself to specific songs – it’s just a full on vibe.

KeiyaA - Forever, Ya Girl – I really do like off-kilter R&B – I guess this reminds me of that Melanie Charles record from a few years ago (what happened to her?) but way more assertive

Hallelujah! - Wanna Dance – varied punk, kinda funky maybe? Very weird, a lot of synth. Has a song called “your duck” and also “burka for everyone” which are both good song names

Subliminal Excess – 2020 – this record is perfect hardcore punk. It’s insane. It’s menacing, angry, the guitars sound insane, so many riffs, great vocals.

Yves Tumor - Heaven to a Tortured Mind – everybody loves this dude now.

FACS - Void Moments – do you like music like this? I don’t think I know how to describe it other than maybe art punk. Like, it’s arty music that is aggressive and slightly threatening and weird. I like it. I watched them play an online streamed concert this year and they were great, just a great rock group

Lohesh - The Ascension – this is my old roommate Zach’s band in DC. It’s post-punk but not like you are thinking. It’s got some jams on there. The vocals are very strong imo. She can really belt it out. I guess it is goth-y(?). Moss Creep (last track) is really good.

Royce da 5'9 - The Allegory – good record

Lavender Flu - Barbarian Dust – I truly cannot believe this album came out this year – February feels like years ago. They cover Venom and also a song by a First Nations dude from rural Canada and it all just sounds like cool van/biker rock music.

Chiller – Chiller – this is their new record, which has the same name as their old one. PGH dudes. Burly (but not tough) hardcore. Short songs, crazy guitar playing.

Wednesday - I Was Trying To Describe You To Someone – I have a hard time imagining that someone put out a better shoegaze album this year.

Six Organs of Admittance - Companion Rises – I love this band and I think this is some of their/his most concise work in the vein of the type of music I like the most – the sort of spaced out desert rock raga type stuff.

Soakie - s/t- Extremely mad women -

The Men – Mercy – I actually don’t know if I have listened to this whole record but it has one of my top 5 songs of the year on it (Children All Over the World) that was immediately added to my “twice in a row” playlist

MHYSA – Nevaeh – Oh, you thought the KeiyaA record was weird? Well, this one goes off the rails. I love it.

Kveltertak – Splid – it blows my mind they don’t have a bandcamp. This is on spotify or youtube or whatever. This is good metal from the north, like trad metal not some death metal or anything. It rocks like crazy. Riffs riffs riffs riffs. Honestly this is what I wish the Refused sounded like. It’s kind of like buckcherry was good maybe and also from Sweden or something.

Chubby and the Gang - Speed Kills – All Along the Uxbridge Road is an insane song. I love this album. It’s like somewhere between Oi/Hardcore/the Dictators. It’s top 10 for me this year, maybe top 5.

Wax Chattels – Clot – this is what I think indie rock should actually sound like. Kinda punk weird arty music. Of course they are from New Zealand or something.

Goblin USA - Demo 2020 – this tape sounds insane. It actually sounds like a monster singing for a sludgy hardcore band. It’s so cool. Also calling your band Goblin USA rules. The song “Loose Flesh” is so awesome.

Kate NV - Room for the Moon – I always think this is like, beeps and boops but it’s way more than that.

Hiroshi Yoshimura – Green – the most peaceful music I have ever heard. I love this record.

Go Hirano - Corridor of Daylights

Oh also, I forgot to put this one in there. It should be in the top ones.

So many more!!!
Some of these deserve to be up there, but I haven’t gotten there yet.

Terrace Martin, Robert Glasper, 9th Wonder & Kamasi Washington EPs
Drakeo the Ruler & JoogSzn - Thank You For Using GTL
All Hits - Men and Their Work
Powerplant - A Spine/Evidence EP
Woods - Strange to Explain and the collection one
Melenas - Dias Raros
Cinder Well - No Summer
Rat Cage - Screams From the Cage
WOW - Come La Notte
Dungen - Dungen Live
Man Eaters - Gentle Ballads for the Simple Soul
Freon - PYK
Three Knee Deep - s/t
Terrace Martin - Soul Juice EP
Nudie Mag - Our Milk
Jocko - Wise Man/Majority Rule
U.S. Girls - Heavy Light
En Attendant Ana - Julliet
Gunn-Truscinski Duo - Soundkeeper
Psychology Machine - Never Trust Anyone With More Money Than You
GAG – Still Laughing
ISS – Too Punk For Heavy Metal
Chill Parents - At the Barricades
Necrot - Mortal
Duma - s/t

Also Very Good!
These records are all super great. It is crazy how many incredible records, of all different types, came out this year.

Naked Roommate - Do the Duvet
CCR Headcleaner - Street Riffs
The Green Child - Shimmering Basset
H.C. McEntire - Eno Axis
Cass McCombs - Sweet Lucy/Wild Mountain Thyme EP
Wild Flowers of America - Lost in the Salvation
Uniform - Shame
R. Boyd & Dusk - High Country Skyway
Lambchop - Trip
Body Double - Milk Fed
Bent Arcana - s/t
Alien Nosejob - Once Again the Present Becomes the Past
Alien Nosejob - Suddenly Everything is Twice As Loud
Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou - May Our Chambers be Full
Ilsa - Preyer
Kurt Vile - Speed, Sound, Lonely KV EP
Death Valley Girls - Under the Spell of Joy
Eartheater - Phoenix: Flames Are Dw Upon My Skin
Shlomo - Heaven Inc. EP
Kelly Lee Owens - Inner Song
Body Count - Carnivore
GBV - Mirrored Aztec
Roger Eno & Brian Eno - Mixing Colours
Bowel Rupture/Punisher Split
Joe Pernice - Richard
The Whip - s/t
Initiate - Lavender
Ecostrike - A Truth We Still Believe
Steve Hartlett - both records but I like solitude for dummies more because I have listened to it a lot.
Whettman Chelmets - 1000 Faces
Crack Cloud - Pain Olympics
Bing & Ruth - Species
Julianna Barwick - Healing Is a Miracle
Margo Price - That's How Rumors Get Started
Kawaguchi Masami's New Rock Syndicate & Kryssi Battalene - s/t
Oranssi Puzuzu - Mestarin Kynsi
Pottery - Welcome To Bobby's Motel
No Age - Goons Be Gone
Jim Whitte & Marisa Anderson - The Quickening
Mourning a Blkstar - The Cycle
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith - The Mosaic of Transformation
Mark McGuire - Nothing In This World
KA - Descendants of Cain
Sven Wounder - Eastern Flowers
Blake Mills - Mutable Set
Forgotten Tomb - Nihilistic Estrangement
Ritual Clearing - s/t
Primo - Sogni
So Cow - But What Has That Done to the Scores?
Fu Manchu - Fu30, Pt. 1 Single
Local H - Lifers
Irreal - 2020
Kohti Tuhoa - Elä Totuudesta
Qlowski - Ikea Youth/Grinding Halt
Masterpiece Machine - single
Glâsbird - Norskfjorōr
RZA - Guided Explorations
Stephen Malkmus - Traditional Techniques
SMUT - First Kiss
Wasted Shirt - Fungus II
Shopping - All or Nothing
Elkhorn - The Storm Sessions
Walter Martin - The World At Night
Wire - Mind Hive
Chromatics - Closer to Grey
Annihilator - Ballistic Sadistic
Kirk Windstein - Dream in Motion
Amos Pitsch - Acid Rain
Zulu - My People . . . Hold On
Brett Naucke & Ryley Walker - I Am Aware We Do Not Save One Another Very Often
Venom Prison - Primeval
Gord Downie - Away Is Mine
Haircut - Cake
Rolex - s/t EP
North Americans - Roped In
Oneohtrix Point Never - Magic Oneohtrix Point Never
The Bats – Foothills
The Nels Cline Singers – Share the Wealth
Heathered Pearls – Cast
Com Truise – In Decay, Too
Lithics – Tower of Age
Autechre (?)

Sunday, December 13, 2020

The New Shit Radar: December Drops Edition

Why oh why must end-of-year list season only come but once a year?

We remember back when the EOYs were all posted post-Christmas. But not anymore! No surprises here: So far we're seeing lots of extra early, extra rushed, and extra extra boring bullshit.

We had a 2 hour drive earlier today, and so we said fuck it and breezed through P4k's "100 Best Songs of 2020" playlist. The process of wading through 20-ish songs we already knew and another 80-ish hookless plods generated some legit anxiety. It would be nice if any of them eventually built to a chorus or included something memorable. But no. Nothing. There was plenty of hot fire throughout 2020, and no big surprises here -- pitchfork ignored literally all of it. Even the Earl Sweatshirt deep cut bored us.

Anyway, mid-December seems like as good a time as any for a crescent fresh edition of The New Shit Radar, since listicle season succeeds in burying the December drops year after year. Here's some recent non-holiday-related stuff we're actually excited about:

Emma Ruth Rundle & Thou Covers Cranberries Song That We Forgot Existed
Oh yeah, that one. At the time, we didn't think much of it because it really does sound like "Zombie II: The Return Of Zombie," but in hindsight, and within this context, it's now probably one of our favorite tracks of the year.

MF Doom Spits Bars Of Fire On New GTA
DOOM's 2020 worldly contributions seemed to kick some ass across the board.

Def Lep's One-Armed Drummer Voted Best In The World
Maybe the voters were super bummed about the Def Lep / Motley Crue tour getting postponed once again. Rick Allen was the only one-armed drummer to make the cut, as far as we could tell. Three-armed drummer Tommy Lee placed in the top 10. Read the results here: https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/def-leppards-rick-allen-named-best-rock-drummer-in-the-world

The Gagmen Release First LP
Andrew WK, Aaron Dilloway, and current Wolf Eyes dudes formed a weirdo supergroup. Good album!

Stove's Surprise Bandcamp-Day Drop Is V.Nice
We probably shouldn't be referring to the project as "Stove" since that is technically a full band, but yeah. This was a nice surprise drop for sure. Catch it:

Editrix Drop "Chelsea" Ahead of Feb Release on EIS
Wendy Eisenberg's new band prepares to melt brains in 2021.

Glitterer's New Song Sounds Like Glitterer Except Newer
Are you sure?

Bee Gees Documentary Coming To HBO
Actually it already is on HBO now as of last night. Whoops. Our 30 day HBO Max subsription ends tomorrow at 9PM so I guess we better get on this. https://www.vulture.com/2020/12/the-bee-gees-hbo-documentary-review.html

Eyehategod Return With "High Risk Trigger"
New album coming in the Spring!

Somerset Thrower Drop 2nd LP
We are feeling this one. Grungey emocore.

After Hours Top 10 Most Played -- Week Of December 1st
Probably the final After Hours FM weekly list of 2020. The end of year results will be tallied and posted next week. In the meantime, here's the songs with the most plays from last week:

WXCI AFTER HOURS TOP 20 (Week of 12/1/2020)
This week	ARTIST Title	Links
1	MINDFORCE Reign Of Terror	bbbrecords.bandcamp.com/ track/reign-of-terror
2	DAVID NANCE My Love, The Dark, And I	davidnance.bandcamp.com/ track/my-love-the-dark-and-i
3	EMMA RUTH RUNDLE & THOU Into Being	thou.bandcamp.com/ track/into-being
4	SOMERSET THROWER Say Hello	bbbrecords.bandcamp.com/ track/say-hello
5	FUMING MOUTH Master Of Extremity	bbbrecords.bandcamp.com/ track/master-of-extremity
6	MR. BUNGLE Eracist	mrbungle.bandcamp.com/ track/eracist
7	SYSTEM OF A DOWN Protect The Land	systemofadown.bandcamp.com/ track/protect-the-land-2
8	ADRIANNE LENKER Anything	adriannelenker.bandcamp.com/ track/anything
9	SYSTEM OF A DOWN Genocidal Humanoidz	systemofadown.bandcamp.com/ track/genocidal-humanoidz-2
10	GUM COUNTRY Tennis (I Feel Ok)	gumcountry.bandcamp.com/ track/tennis-i-feel-ok-2
11	ONEOHTRIX POINT NEVER I Don't Love Me Anymore	oneohtrixpointnever.bandcamp .com/track/i-don-t-love- me-anymore
12	DEFTONES Urantia	Youtube
13	MEET ME AT THE ALTER Garden	mmata.bandcamp.com/ track/garden
14	MR. BUNGLE Methematics	mrbungle.bandcamp.com track/methematics
15	OMERTA Garbage	ihateomerta.bandcamp.com/ track/garbage
16	DISCLOSURE f/ KELIS Watch Your Step	disclosureuk.bandcamp.com/ track/watch-your-step
17	MISTER GOBLIN Punk Band	mistergoblin.bandcamp.com/ track/punk-band
18	BLINKER THE STAR Cairo	blinkerthestar.bandcamp.com/ track/cairo
19	SUPERCRUSH Get It Right	supercrush.bandcamp.com/ track/get-it-right-2
20	SWEEPING PROMISES Hunger For A Way Out	sweepingpromises.bandcamp .com/track/hunger-for-a-way-out

Thursday, August 27, 2020

Buzz Clips 1987 - 2004

We got inspired to throw together a complete "Buzz Clips" playlist based on the chronological "Buzzworthy" list that used to be on mtv.com.

While throwing this together, we made some discoveries:

#1 One incomplete list is found in this published academic research article which does not include specifics on where the list was retrieved, although its notes suggests their content was pulled from mtv.com's archive on the wayback machine.

Incidentally, the article's hypothesis presents a heavily flawed theory suspecting a programming bias against artists of color and non-male musicians -- a theory which might have held some weight if they had instead focused on adds for MTV's '80s videos. Thriller notably broke MTV's color barrier in 1983; by the early '90s, the eligibility pool had broadened enough that they were airing bumpers boasting "MTV: The V Is For Variety" and similar taglines. (Pretty sure "the V" was in a summer '93 bumper with 3-second snippets from Aerosmith, Janet Jackson, Radiohead, Madonna, and Dr. Dre.)

It's true that 4 out of 5 Buzz Clips were guitar-rock bands, primarily focusing on alternative crossovers. And for about five years (1992-1996), the Buzz Clips tag primarily branded itself as rock promotion.

But it's also true that Buzz Clips comprised less than 10% of MTV's music programming. The study ignores non-rock branded promotions like "Jam Of The Week" (the feature that first introduced us to Notorious B.I.G.) or their largely varied weekly "Top 20 Video Countdown" show, or the crossover adds that derived from shows like MTV Jams, Yo! MTV Raps, The Grind, AMP, Dial MTV and TRL. All of MTV's "Top 100 Video Countdown" megablocks that they used to play over New Years are listed on IMDB. Choose any year from the '90s at random, and it should become pretty obvious very quickly that the variety in their programming intended to broaden their demographic as wide as possible.

MTV was, and still is, a business. They needed to sell OxyClean pads and Parfume Decour to every teenager whose parents could afford basic cable -- not just the Soul Asylum fans. It would not have aligned with their business model to hyperfocus on targeting white gen-x rock dudes.

We're guessing the research study was a fun excuse to watch every Buzz Clip video. But it's strange that the study's results were considered strong enough to warrant academic publishing. We get the impression that its authors' experience with MTV throughout the '90s was passive at best, and they purposely chose a narrow branded area of MTV's programming instead of considering a broader sample scope. If we were their professor, we would give them a C-. (If the authors happen to find this, we are sorry.)

#2 It's possible that an MTV.com intern was responsible for compiling this list of Buzz Clips since a lot of the videos were missing. (So the study linked above wasn't using accurate data anyway.) Here's a few missing videos we found:

- For whatever reason, the 1994 section had the most omissions.
- Cracker "Low" (early '94) does not appear on the mtv.com list, but it's on the first volume of the Buzz Bin comps. (That said, it was definitely not included in the bumper with Rage, Deep Forest, and Danzig from around the same era.)
- We have a tape with "Disarm" on it (early '94), and it says "Buzz Clip" in the video, which means it was.
- Primal Scream "Rocks" and Rollins Band "Liar" (April '94) do not appear in the big list, but we found both in someone's description of a Buzz Clips TV bumper along with "Longview" and Frente. (The clip is not on Youtube sadly.) When we double checked this in a back issue of Billboard, "Liar" was denoted as a Buzz Clip, but not "Rocks." In either case, we went with what the commercial said.
- NIN's "March of the Pigs" (March '94) and "Closer" (Summer '94) are both missing. We found evidence that these were Buzz Clips in Billboard magazine.
- Weezer "Buddy Holly" (Nov/Dec '94) does not appear either, but it's definitely in a late-'94 Buzz Clips bumper with "Seether," Urge Overkill, and "Doll Parts." We posted the bumper below.
- On the wikipedia page for the band Wax, it claims that "California" (March '95) was a buzz clip, but we can't find any evidence of this. However, we're almost certain it was branded as a Breakthrough Video, even though it was not nominated for "Best Breakthrough" at the VMAs that year.
- There's more, like "El Scorcho" (Sept '96) and "Bullet With Butterfly Wings" (Sept '95) and a few others. We're tired of writing about this.

#3 There are many truly strange selections here. We don't feel like listing them all, but a few noteworthy ones include:
- Alan Ginsberg featuring Paul McCartney and Philip Glass??? Does anyone remember ever seeing this?
- A Bob Dylan video from Time Out Of Mind that we don't remember ever seeing on MTV.
- Bosstones' "So Sad To Say," despite that "Impression That I Get" does not appear on this list. (We suspect "Impression" was Buzz but the intern fucked up.)

Also an artist named Rachid is the final video listed for 1998, but the interns wrote Rancid and didn't bother fact-checking themselves.

After we were done loading up the buzz clip tracks, it still kinda felt incomplete, so we opted to include selections from the Breakthrough Video nominees. The additions become especially helpful in the 1999-2004 section.

Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Reply All, "So Much Better," and the radio of Fall '99

The first noteworthy COVID-19 headline that failed to resonated worldwide occurred after Dr. Li Wenliang's death on February 7th 2020.

We heard a Pop Smoke song on Power 105 yesterday, and we felt a jog in our memory. (Did we use "jog" correctly there?) Didn't Pop Smoke die not too long ago? Did that happen? We had to look it up to be sure, and yes, he passed away back on February 19th, a headline that feels like it belongs to a buried, distant, alternate 2020.

On February 25th, we attended a current-events themed "trivia night" where the answer to one question was Pop Smoke. The Nevada Caucus was also around that time, which may have been the most recent hopeful moment in the history of the world.

As the viral outbreak and Super Tuesday collectively decimated any remaining hope for the future, morale was low and existential dread surged.

We did not expect the highlight that defined the following weekend to arrive from Reply All, a popular tech podcast that peaked in quality well over 18 months ago, before the atmosphere of the show started to hinge more heavily on creating characters out of the show's two primary hosts. We liked the show a lot better between 2017 and 2018 when it felt like there was more reporting, more cultural commentary, and less emphasis on the hosts as podcast personalities. Like many podcasters, their laughs are frequent and grating.

That said, their March 6th episode "The Case Of the Missing Hit" was an unexpected moment of lighthearted engagement. At least 7 or 8 reporters and bloggers reviewed the episode, including someone from The Guardian erroneously claiming it as "the greatest podcast episode ever."

So that's the first thing we wanted to note here: The episode is very funny, engaging, warm and nostalgic. It was something we really needed that weekend to temporarily lift our drowning, choking, suffocating heads from the slime bucket of life.

The other thing we wanted to discuss regards Evan Olson's major label flop "So Much Better," the subject of the episode.

Are there Top 40 flops anymore? The answer is a resounding "no." Due to radio consolidation, every current radio hit is carefully considered, backed by numbers to ensure longevity and justify the immense investment.

"So Much Better" arrived toward the end of perhaps the saddest era of '90s commercial radio, a brief stretch between the great label merge of Fall '98 and the advent of Napster one year later.

After the big merge, promotional dollars per song increased as a consequence of having less songs to promote. So 1999 was probably the first year when you could turn on the radio and notice smaller new music playlists. The breakthrough hits of this era felt bland and predictable compared to earlier in the decade. The "creative genius wiz kid" (ie Beck, Busta Rhymes, et al.) was no longer a profitable commodity. (We've written about this before, but the late '98 records that we always cite as suffering the most from the first wave of consolidation were The Cardigans' Gran Turismo, Nada Surf's The Proximity Effect, and Local H's Pack Up The Cats.) By Spring 2000, the excitement of MTV's longest running show, 120 Minutes, dwindled as it spent its final few months sneaking Broadcast or Primal Scream videos between premieres from prioritized VH1 artists and nu-metal bros.

After Napster, a pristine digital copy of a minor hit was as good as yours if you could afford enough real estate among a precious 11.2 gigs of hard drive space. (That was the size of our hard drive in 1999.) So if you heard a song on the radio every day for two months and it disappeared from your favorite station's playlist out of nowhere, you wouldn't have to invest $14.99 to hear it again.

Immediately promoted as a non-crossover VH1-ready pop hit, "So Much Better" never got the chance to build momentum on alternative stations. Vertical Horizon's strategy worked more effectively, as a handful of adult-alternative stations added "Everything You Want" to light rotation throughout Oct-Nov '99, eventually building enough steam to crossover, hitting #1 on the Hot 100 in June 2000. "So Much Better" also has no music video, and it was never performed on TV. Granted, these extra boosts didn't guarantee success. It helped when people actually enjoyed the song, which was not the case with an artist like John Oszajca for instance. He can say that he got to play Woodstock '99 and that his terrible song "Back In 1999" was the lead single for the Mystery Men soundtrack; otherwise, Oszajca's flop performed just as poorly.

Out of curiosity, we spent about an hour on Sunday, March 8th digging around some November '99 back issues of Radio and Records, Billboard, and a few similar magazines to see if there were other similar Top 40 flops of that era. "So Much Better" might have been the only flop of its type from that Fall, but it wouldn't surprise us if 5 or 6 other forgotten test-singles snuck onto playlists regionally between Fall '98 and Spring 2000. However, we doubt this phenomenon continued after the advent of Napster.

It's hard to say whether Reply All purposely omitted any fun facts to assist with the story's progression. Evan Olson's Wikipedia entry states that he used to play in a couple Chapel Hill area bands in the early '90s with none other than Ben Folds, perhaps the era's most well-known musician from that region of North Carolina. The Reply All episode makes it seem like Evan's CD oddly found its way to UMG by chance, but we suspect he had some inside assistance and probably knew some people.

One final note: This song really sucks. If it were on our radar by December 1999, it's very likely it would have landed somewhere among our "Worst Songs of 1999." (We'd like to find that list tbh. It's around somewhere.) Twenty years later, we're more lenient for funny-bad, but we're still puzzled by mental space that might inspire anyone to write a song that sounds like this.

Its production value and the dorkiness in the songwriting added many LOLz to the podcast itself. If it weren't so goofy, we probably wouldn't have enjoyed it. As Susan Rogers noted (without Reply All crediting her as Prince's legendary sound engineer), "So Much Better" sounds like three misremembered segments pulled from entirely different songs. Structurally, "it doesn't sound like a hit." She is correct. But the nuances in its production (revealed at the end of the episode) somewhat align with hits from that era.

For contextual purposes, it helped a bit to recall what radio actually sounded like then. Considering our attitude at the time, we don't think we were wrong throughout 1999 growing increasingly upset with how quickly alternative and modern rock radio had been immersed in prospects for VH1 and TRL crossovers. Just for fun, here's a C+P of what WLIR was playing that month. Again, we think it's strange that Universal never thought to pitch Evan Olson to stations like these...

1. 311 Come Original (Capricorn)
2. SMASH MOUTH Then The Morning Comes (Interscope)
3. FILTER Take A Picture (Reprise)
4. FOO FIGHTERS Learn To Fly (RCA)
5. GOO GOO DOLLS Black Balloon (Warner Bros.)
6. LIVE Dolphin's Cry (Radioactive)
7. TRAIN Meet Virginia (Aware/Columbia)
8. FIONA APPLE Fast As You Can (Clean Slate/Epic)
9. PET SHOP BOYS New York City Boy (Sire)
10. BUSH The Chemicals Between Us (Trauma)
11. JIMMIE'S CHICKEN SHACK Do Right (Island)
12. CHRIS CORNELL Can't Change Me (A&M)
13. STROKE 9 Little Black Backpack (Universal)
14. CREED Higher (Wind-up)
15. COUNTING CROWS Hangin Around (DGC)
16. SANTANA FEATURING ROB THOMAS Smooth (Arista)
17. SANTANA FEATURING EVERLAST Put Your Lights On (Arista)
18. KID ROCK Cowboy (Atlantic)
19. STING Brand New Day (A&M)
20. JAMES Just Like Fred Astaire (Fontana U.K.)
21. R.E.M. The Great Beyond (Warner Bros.)
22. SARAH MCLACHLAN Ice Cream (Arista)
23. BLINK 182 All The Small Things (MCA)
24. BECK Sexxlaws (DGC)
25. MOBY Bodyrock (V2)
26. TOM JONES & THE CARDIGANS Burning Down The House (Gut U.K.)
27. MARCY PLAYGROUND It's Saturday (Capitol)
28. LIMP BIZKIT Re-arranged (Interscope)
29. FUEL Sunburn (Epic/550 Music)
30. SAVE FERRIS Mistaken (Epic)
31. RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS Around The World (Warner Bros.)
32. THIRD EYE BLIND Anything (Elektra)
33. OUR LADY PEACE One Man Army (Columbia)
34. EURYTHMICS 17 Again (Arista)
35. BEASTIE BOYS Alive (Capitol)
36. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE Guerrilla Radio (Epic)
37. EDNA'S GOLDFISH Veronica Sawyer (Moon Ska)
38. SOULWAX Much Against Everyone's Advice (Almo)
39. BETH HART L..A. Song (Atlantic)
40. KORN Falling Away From Me (Epic)
41. MUSE Muscle Museum (Maverick)
42. STONE TEMPLE PILOTS Down (Atlantic)
43. NINE INCH NAILS We're In This Together (Nothing/Interscope)
44. EIFFEL 65 Blue (Republic)
45. OFFSPRING She's Got Issues (Columbia)
ADDS:
TORI AMOS Cornflake Girl (live) (Atlantic)
VERTICAL HORIZON Everything You Want (RCA)
BETH HART L.A. Song (Atlantic)

Thursday, December 20, 2018

Holiday Content and the new MTVZ

Hi there. If you're looking for some holiday content while driving or washing the dishes, why not try the Dime Store Hegemon Radio Hour's 2-part Holiday extravaganza? Over the past two Wednesdays, the show has been kicking ass in Anckorage, Alaska pumping out the wintery jams and bringing you what you need.

We all heard a very good Hanukkah (sp?) song by Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings on the "Part 1" episode the other day. Did not hear the "Part 2" yet but it's probably somehow even better than the 1st one. Also, the Late Night Noise holiday show (the one more closely affiliated with this website) was not posted yet, so just listen to Dave's show because it was better. The shows are posted below.

Also posted below is the most recent edition of MTVZ which somehow has been viewed over 150 times and we're not sure how that happened. It also includes lots of holiday content.

Wednesday, December 23, 2015

We Reviewed K-Rock's Top 92.3 Songs of 2003 and 2004

With end of year lists and holiday celebrations abound, it probably doesn't make much sense to post stuff about our recent nostalgia for K-Rock in New York. But we're gonna do it anyway.

At some point throughout the past year, we remembered that somewhere in our storage locker was a series of CDRs containing two broadcasts that took place in late December of 2003 and late December of 2004 on WXRK in NYC. The station was then "92.3 K-Rock," NYC's only modern rock station during the 2000s and the flagship of Howard Stern's morning show from 1985 until his move to Sirius in 2005.

After a few months without having a chance to dig into our archives, we finally located these CDRs back in November and decided to rip all of them to mp3. This eventually led to this past weekend when a 15+ hour drive from Louisville to Baltimore - and then to Brooklyn - seemed like a great opportunity to roll through the tapes.

The two shows were K-Rock's Top 92.3 songs of 2003 (probably broadcast on December 26, 2003) and their top 92.3 songs of 2004 (most likely aired on the same date in 2004).

2003's list is available here and does not include two of the songs aired:
- Yeah Yeah Yeah's "Date With The Night" - the .3 song (the song they played first which technically would be song #93, except they only played 3/10ths of it).
- 50 Cent's "In Da Club" won some type of "Best New Artist" award (which basically proves that they didn't alter their poll results) and was broadcast somewhere in the middle of the whole thing.

2004's list can be found here. At the time, we were only able to tape chunks of it. Disc 1 has #92.3-70. Disc 2 has #58-38. Disc 3 includes #15-1. The 2004 list presented a notable increase in variety from the previous year, although it was also the final Top 92.3 that the station ever aired. The DJs sarcastically mocked when Nickelback and Linkin Park placed, who they were probably sick of hearing by that point.

These two shows were examples of rare instances when the K-Rock DJs were asked to collaborate. Every 2 songs, there would be a talkover from a different DJ. Matt Pinfield appears frequently in the 2003 list, although he typically only announced music during a two-hour Sunday Night show called "The Buzz" and never throughout the week. By 2004, Jake Fogelnest from MTV's Squirt TV was present, although Cabbie - a loudmouth metalhead DJ and Desert Storm veteran - was absent.

We're pretty sure Cabbie is the bald dude in the center of the picture we posted with Incubus. We originally thought he was absent from the 2004 list for one of two reasons: #1, The show might have taken place during his suspension from WXRK, after he played album tracks from Pantera and Queens of the Stone Age out of rotation during an early morning shift around 4AM. Or #2, It might have happened while he was institutionalized after breaking holes in the walls of his apartment searching for cameras while convinced that Howard Stern had planted them for the purpose of shooting a secret reality show. However upon viewing his wikipedia page, we were reminded that December 2004 was shortly after he was imprisoned after admitting live on Howard's show that he hadn't paid taxes in several years.

For those who remember, K-Rock in 2003-2004 was probably not the best example of a rock station with a widely varied playlist.

Their "heavy" rotation was their top 20 new songs. They would play a couple of these every hour.

Their "medium" rotation almost never changed from 2001 until the station's final broadcast in April 2005. 80% of it consisted of a firm unchanging selection of diamond megasellers, a list that couldn't have been larger than 100 songs: The singles from The Black Album, Ten, Core, Dookie and Blood Sugar Sex Magik. "Santeria," "Wrong Way," "Song 2," "Come Out and Play," "Self Esteem," "All Apologies," and the Stern show's impromptu acoustic version of "Everlong" were probably their most overplayed '90s jams. After 1999, they went nuts over Limp Bizkit, Korn, Eminem, Californication and The Battle of Los Angeles. After 2002, they played Audioslave so much that we are still to this day convinced that they were undoubtedly the worst band of the 2000-2009 decade. They basically owe that distinction to "I Am The Highway" becoming one of the few mid-2000s songs to enter K-Rock's longevity canon. (As if it wasn't bad enough that two of our all time favorite bands joined forces to create excruciatingly painful music, but then we also had to be reminded about it EVERY DAY thanks to K-Rock.)

Their "light" rotation consisted of a handful of songs that used to be in their heavy rotation, hanging on for dear life prior to being indefinitely forced into exile. The Darkness's "Growing On Me" and Radiohead's "Go To Sleep" received a few spins but didn't stand a chance of inclusion in the longevity canon.

Their General Manager, Tom Chiusano, remained insistent on a foolish notion that their audience was uninterested in hearing music beyond this very small selection of songs. Their occasional attempts at bringing back older jams were always attached with some sort of purpose, like Julie Slater's 30 minute "Flashback Lunch" (or whatever it was called) that aired weekdays between 12 and 12:30. Or the occasional "'90s weekend" celebration, when they would finally dig out Better Than Ezra's "Good" for the first time in God knows how long. Beyond that, the sense of adventure within their music programming was practically non-existent. For example, when Christopher Reeves died in September 2004, Chris Booker was only allowed to play 30 seconds of Our Lady Peace's "Superman's Dead," even though it was a #1 hit on K-Rock during the summer of 1997 and was fondly remembered by the large majority of its listeners. Chiusano remained completely unaware that their audience desperately craved a deeper playlist that they never received.

This lack of variety also contributed to a painful decrease in the representation of female fronted bands. Once upon a time, it was very common to turn on K-Rock and hear songs like "Stupid Girl," "Lovefool" or "Criminal." But by the time 2003 had arrived, those days were long gone.

Our frustration - and our hope that something might change - were probably a large part of the reason why we became so obsessed with K-Rock between 2003 and 2005. This was also when we started REALLY getting into Howard Stern, and that definitely had a lot to do with our addiction, but most Stern fanatics turned off the radio at 11AM. We kept listening, even though we knew we were just gonna hear "Otherside" and "Like a Stone" for the billionth fucking time.

K-Rock in 2003-2004 was probably the only moment within our lifetime when we can recall becoming fanatical over a specific radio station and all the personalities and nuances that went along with it. (To be fair, we were obsessed with radio as a whole and were recently honored with the "music director" position at a college station 60 miles north of Manhattan.) The mannerisms of K-Rock's DJs were different than any station we've heard before or since. They were always very conversational and casual, probably due to instruction from their program director to take cues from Howard Stern's relaxed demeanor. We've never heard another commercial station quite like it.

After Stern made his decision to move to satellite, Chiusano panicked and the station flipped formats at least four times between 2005 and 2007. It changed from "modern rock" to "all things rock" to "talk radio (during the week) and rock on the weekends" to what it is now, a painfully boring and unadventurous pop station. (Z100 has always sounded more adventurous to us. Over the past 3 years, they would try out hits like "Treasure" or "#Beautiful" or "Boom Clap" while 92.3 just stuck to the tried and true Billboard Top 30 without deviation.)

We remember the last day they were officially called K-Rock. One of the last songs they played was "L'Via L'Viaquez" by The Mars Volta, so they were definitely making strong efforts to play more alt and less butt. But the efforts seemed all for naught. As Stern's show took place that morning, the station's staff held a meeting and the format flip was effective immediately. After the Stern show was over, their former top 20 new rock hits were replaced with Ozzy, GNR, Led Zeppelin and AC/DC, while the K-Rock longevity canon stayed intact. And that was the end of modern rock radio in NYC. It never returned quite in the same way. (Between 2009 and 2011, a fantastic NYC rock station briefly emerged with alt-leanings and adventurous playlists. The Cure, Lou Reed and Elastica were played alongside Megadeth and Primus. It was hugely appreciated, but it seemed like everyone knew it would never last. K-Rock had a following and their audience probably would have stuck with them, but unfortunately they decided to simply disappear.)

Not sure why this seems necessary, but based on what we can remember from those two broadcasts, here are our favorite K-Rock DJs, in order:

#1 Julie Slater
#2 Matt Pinfield
#3 Danni
So there's our top 3. Julie and Danni - K-Rock's only 2 female announcers - were always the station's most refreshing voices. Julie specifically owned the casual/cool demeanor, making her the perfect choice to segue out of Stern's show every morning. The super-knowledgeable and well spoken Pinfield misses out on the #1 slot because he wasn't on the air often enough.

#4 Cabbie
His strong personality frequently struck us as off putting, but he had a commanding presence that wasn't as common elsewhere on K-Rock. When he spoke, you always knew it was him.

#5 Booker
Booker immediately receives mad bonus points since he briefly hosted 120 Minutes between 1999 and 2000, including the episode where he interviewed The Get Up Kids. He also took our call and aired it, which was pretty cool. We didn't actually hear when it was aired, but we discussed Local H's cover of "Toxic" for about 30 seconds. About 15 minutes later, our friend called us and said "Dude, I turned on K-Rock and what do I hear??"

#6 Stuttering John
We can't say we were huge fans of his all-request 12PM-1PM slot (which was entirely pre-recorded during Howard Stern's show), but he earns points thanks to his placement in '90s Stern show history. We're pretty sure it was John who annoyed Billy Crystal enough that he eventually uttered his greatest catchphrase: "Alright, guys, it's not funny and it's not fun."

#7 Jake Fogelnest
"The Squirt TV dude" was an inspired choice for a new voice after Cabbie's departure. Jake's first K-Rock appearance was during a "Top 100 Worst Christmas Songs" special (either '03 or '04). Within a year, he left K-Rock to host a weekly countdown show on Sirius Radio's "Left of Center" channel.

#8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 (6-way tie) Dimos/Maze/Cane/Brad Maybe/Ben Harvey/Dead Air Dave
Dead Air Dave was probably the dude who was super sarcastic about Linkin Park, and Ben Harvey might have been the dude who said "Nickelback sucks" after being forced to play that horrible "I like your pants around your feet" song. So consider them slightly higher than the rest. But otherwise, these guys are pretty much interchangeable. Oh yeah, also High Pitch Erik had a man-crush on Cane. Besides that, we can't remember anything else about these guys. (In that 100th of a fraction of a possibility that anyone who worked at K-Rock between 2003-2005 reads this, just wanna say we're sorry and we love you.)

Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Monkeywrench Radio '98

Hell yeah. We found a Youtube video of Monkeywrench Radio that's embedded below.

For those like us who were listening on the East Coast, this radio show took place on a Saturday night - January 31, 1998 - starting somewhere around 10 or 11PM, and it was finished probably between 2 and 3AM, early on February 1st. (The satellite feed was live from Seattle, so everything on the West Coast was 3 hours earlier.)

For some reason, our post about Pearl Jam from 4 years ago receives more views than most of the stuff we post on here. But in that post, we briefly discussed Self-Pollution Radio, a 4-hour simulcast from Eddie Vedder's basement in January 1995 that included 15-20 minute sets from Pearl Jam and their friends' bands (like Mudhoney and Soundgarden among others), as well as discussion about social issues, interviews with weirdos like Mike Watt, and lots of records. 90% of what they played sounded like it was spun from a single turntable hooked up to a soundboard, although there might have been a second turntable. It sounded like they had a lot of fun putting the whole thing together, and they expressed interest in doing more of them.

The only other basement simulcast like this happened three years later. Self-Pollution Radio took place fairly close to the peak of Pearl Jam's popularity, while Monkeywrench Radio - essentially the sequel - took place well after that point. By then, Soundgarden had split up, and the weirdo college-rock crossover singles that once infected stations like New York's Z100 between 1994-1995 had been supplanted by safe VH1-friendly alt-rock.

While Self-Pollution Radio was pretty heavily advertised and discussed on MTV News, Monkeywrench Radio didn't receive nearly as much buzz prior to the broadcast. It's possible that a lot of people who would have been interested in listening simply had no idea that it was happening. So basically, it's a little harder to find a copy of this one.

Within the past few weeks, someone uploaded their cassette-taped-off-the-radio copy of this to Youtube. It's probably not that difficult to find the actual soundboard recording if you dig far enough, but Youtube is so much more convenient and less time-consuming. The entire broadcast is not here though... Only what this guy was able to fit onto 2 90-minute tapes, which is actually more awesome in a way, even though it's cut short by the time Stone Gossard gets around to spinning records from Missy Elliot and Timbaland.

One amazing moment from the "Part 2" video is revealed during Mike Watt's long-winded interview, when he mentions that the simulcast on LA's KROQ was pulled after in the middle of Krist Novoselic's weirdo rant that included the entirety of The Beach Boys' "Wouldn't It Be Nice." And we don't mean "weirdo" in a negative way. There are very few moments throughout these two tapes that are anything less than incredible, serving their purpose of presenting these rock legends as just normal homies hangin' out and doing their thing.

This is definitely the kind of video that could easily get removed from Youtube at any time. (They already forced the uploader to mute The Ramones' "Rock N' Roll Radio.") So enjoy it while it's available.

Here's the playlist pulled from a version that was distributed on CD:

Disc 1:
01. MW
02. Sonic Youth - Teenage Riot
03. The Ramones - Rock N Roll Radio
04. Stereolab - Noise Of Carpet
05. Pearl Jam - Do The Evolution (live)
06. Pearl Jam - Given To Fly (live)
07. Pearl Jam - Pilate (live)
08. Pearl Jam - Wishlist (live)
09. Pailhead - Don't Stand In Line
10. The Presidents of the USA - Bath Of Fire
11. Ani De Franco - Fuel
12. Zeke - Unknown (live)
13. Zeke - Twisted (live)
14. Zeke - Highway Alter (live)
15. Zeke - Wanna Fuck? (live)
16. Zeke - Chiva Knievel (live)
17. Zeke - West Seattle Acid Party (live)
18. Zeke - Easy Rider (live)
19. Zeke - Unknown (live)
20. Sleater Kinney - Dig Me Out

Disc 2:
01. Ed Talks With Gloria Steinem
02. Ed Talks With Corin Tucker
03. The Need - Unknown
04. Mudhoney - Editions Of You (live)
05. Mudhoney - Oblivion Into Infinity (live)
06. Mudhoney - Real Love Vibe (live)
07. Mudhoney - Have To Laugh (live)
08. Wellwater Conspiracy - Sandy
09. Lukin's Phone Message
10. Ed Talks With Steve Turner
11. The Sonics - He's Waiting
12. Kent 3 - DJ New
13. Pearl Jam - Brain Of J (live)
14. Pearl Jam - In Hiding (live)
15. Pearl Jam - Spin The Black Circle (live)

Disc 3:
01. Soundgarden - HIV Baby
02. Ed Talks With Krist Novoselic
03. Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice
04. REM - Live For Today
05. Tuatara - Saturday Night Chruch (live)
06. Tuatara - L'Espionnage de Pomme de Terre (live)
07. Tuatara - Serengeti (live)
08. Tuatara - The Streets Of New Delhi (live)
09. Chris Cornell - Unshower
10. Ed Talks With Mike Watt
11. Mike Watt - Pedro Bound

Disc 4:
01. Brad - I Don't Know (live)
02. Brad - Not Too Late (live)
03. Brad - Buttercup (live)
04. Hifi Killers - Unknown
05. Hot Chocolate - You Sexy Thing
06. Timbalind & Magoo - Luv 2 Luv You
07. Miss Elliot - Beep Me 911
08. YaYa's - Long Ways
09. Pearl Jam - Nothingman (live)
10. Bill Clinton Speech
11. Hovercraft - Unknown
12. Legion Of Doom
13. Ed Takes A Call
14. Louis Armstrong - What A Wonderful World