A Rant About Music

It’s still January, it’s still bloody freezing outside, it is still dark when I go to work and dark when I come home. January and February are the worst months of the year and I spend almost every day feeling pissed off and grumpy.

Yes - it's another rant, I'm afraid.

Little things make my situation worse, tiny little things that ordinarily wouldn’t bother me, things that I would just push to one side and ignore. In January these little things become a major force and infuriate me.

One such thing infuriated me this morning.

I was on my way to work and I decided to change the CD in my car. I had been listening to the new album by AC/DC and I fancied a change. Sadly, when I ejected the CD, I dropped it on the floor and I had stupidly not prepared a new CD to replace it. The car stereo defaulted to the radio, which normally wouldn’t be too bad because my radio station of choice is a local rock station.

And then I found myself listening to a diabolical R’n’B hip hop crossover dirge that almost certainly featured the now obligatory pointless egotistical rap by an artist with a stupid name like $ycho, Snoop Hen or Eminemineminemiem.

I howled in frustration; I couldn’t stop the car and I needed to concentrate because it was dark and cold and the road was full of arses, trying to cut me up. My temper rose to almost boiling point.

Mrs PM had used the car and changed the radio station so I was listening to an inane, moronic DJ with the intelligence of a slug, playing the songs that corporate arses had ordered him to play. In my rage, I couldn’t figure out how to get back to my beloved rock station so I searched the airwaves and found my ears and brain polluted by utter drivel from loads of genres – songs that are played over and over and over and over again. There were new songs, old boring repetitive songs, one hit wonders, and all manner of novelty crap.

They were shit then and they are shit now.

I find it incredible that we as free-thinking humans allow ourselves to be spoon fed by the so-called gods of music who tell us what to listen to, what to like and the styles of music we have to endure. Like mindless zombies we listen to it.

“But the music is great,” I hear you cry. “You are just an ageing dinosaur. These songs are good.”

Some of the songs that receive too much airplay have been good, dear reader – the odd one. However, we are force fed utter dross most of the time because the hidden powers behind what you hear on the radio have a playlist which is absolutely full of the latest “in-bands” who have somehow managed to gain a foothold because they are pretty boys or lovely young ladies.

I am talking about manufactured boy bands, yet another bloody rap artist, a warbling woman who happens to have a great body and can dance along to her terrible song but has little talent.

Even when I stumble across a radio station playing “oldies”, it’s still the same old songs that we have heard all the time and were bored to death by, way back in the 60’s, 70’s or 80’s.

And this subjugation has permeated into everything from adverts to weddings and parties.

Every single party or wedding I ever go to that has a dance floor, either plays modern radio-friendly garbage or old songs that are totally crap but I know all the words to because I have heard them about three million times in my life.

“OH MY GOD! NOT “I’VE HAD THE TIME OF MY LIFE” AGAIN!! SOMEBODY KILL ME NOW!”

Sometimes when I have had to endure dancing to a stupid song like “Tonight’s Gonna Be A Good Night!” for the 2000th time, I sit there with frustration building up inside, fuelled by alcohol, and say to myself:

“Right – let’s get some bloody rock music!” I say and march over to the DJ defiantly. The DJ has usually said something earlier, like “If you have any requests, please come up.”

The conversation goes one of three ways:

PM: Please – I beg you – can you play something decent? Have you got any rock music?

DJ: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! Sit down, you devil-worshipping dinosaur.

PM: No, seriously – you must have something.

DJ: No – nobody likes it.

PM: I like it.

PM: Don’t care – now piss off!

or

PM: Please – I beg you – can you play something decent? Have you got any rock music?

DJ: No rock music but I’ve got some oldies. How about “Saturday Night” by Whigfield?

PM: AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!

or

PM: Please – I beg you – can you play something decent? Have you got any rock music?

DJ: Sure – I’ll see what I can do.

The last conversation sounds promising, doesn’t it? Well it’s not! What the DJ means is:

“I’ll play one of three token rock songs: “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Journey, “Livin’ On a Prayer” by Bon Jovi or “Sex On Fire” by The Kings of Leon.

AAAAAAARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!

I hate “Livin’ On A Prayer” because it has become the only acceptable rock song in a DJ’s collection and I have heard it about 100 million times. I quite liked it the first time but now it sends me into spasms of indignation.

I blame people like Simon Cowell and Louie Walsh – and probably many other old rich so-called music moguls – who manufacture pretty boys and girls and flood the radio stations with boring inane crap.

I want to start a revolution – as others are. Let’s boycott the radio and start hunting around the internet for fantastic music that will not get airplay.

I am not just focussing on rock music here – there is music out there that is new fresh and brilliant but never gets played because the image doesn’t fit with the gods of music who decide what we should all be listening to.

I’d like to highlight a song that describes the plight of modern music controlled by the music moguls which predicts the demise of future music.



Several lines stand out:

The music of rebellion makes you wanna rage 
But it's made my millionaires who are nearly twice your age

and

One of the wonders of the world is going down 
It’s going down I know
It’s one of the blunders of the world
That no one care enough

Personally, I think there is hope.

Dear reader, you and I have the power to seek out new tunes, new music – to boldly go where no music mogul has gone before (sorry for the Star Trek cliché but I believe it fits).

I have started already in the music galaxy that is called Progressive Rock and have already discovered two bands – one of them from Poland, a country that Simon Cowell and his ilk will totally ignore.

Whatever music style you love, the internet is your friend.

If I were a DJ I would rebel and spend my entire day scouring the internet for something new, refreshing and amazing – and I would play the songs but not over and over again so that people simply got sick of it. I would prefer people to go out and buy this music from independent record companies or buy the music directly from the band/artist in question.

I would make my radio show the greatest programme on the entire planet. I would welcome all and any music sent to me by like-minded people.

Are you sick of the same old bollox on the radio?

Are you fed up of the same old inane DJ’s who play oldies over and over again and sacrifice new exciting music in order to play “I Just Called To Say I Loved You” for the billionth time?

Are you absolutely pissed off with Simon Cowell and his bloody X Factor?

Or am I really a musical dinosaur?

Come on dear reader - let’s do this! Let’s rebel.

I’ll start the ball rolling – here is a great song by band you will never have heard of:



And it’s an utter crime that I intend to put right in my own small way.

Rant over - for now!!