Yes, I'm Old, What Of It?

For all the complaining I did when the CD player in the podmobile went on the fritz, I haven't done much rejoicing now that it's all better and reinstalled. I seem to just be listening to NPR news and Ray Charles cassettes, leaving it pretty much unoccupied. Maybe when I get the $400 bill paid off I'll rejoice.

However, I had to make a drive last night, and I got out some of my CDs for a listen (this was after NPR's "Fresh Air," which featured an interview with David Sedaris, who has a new book out). I found myself putting in all the discs that had older music on them. And by older, I mean the 70s, my golden heyday of youth - I listened last night to all kinds of songs I loved in high school or the year after. And I got nostalgic.

Not necessarily nostalgic for the times, although I'm sure it was certainly nice to not have to worry about a mortgage or an onslaught of bills in '78, and I know it was easier back then, trying to decide between the basketball game or the movies, rather than now, between practicing the clarinet or, oh, I don't know, killing myself.

But I digress.

What I got nostalgic for was the music of my youth, and especially the radio of my youth. I hate the radio now. Hate it. I can listen to public radio, the occasional oldies stations for a short while (even though I have an axe to grind with them, which I'll state later), and sometimes college radio because it can just be really goofy. But that's it.

But radio is so segmented now. Pop stations, soul stations, rap stations, country stations, alternative stations. When we were kids, every town had one or two radio stations, and they played everything! You'd hear Motown along with acid rock along with country music along with soul, and disco, bubblegum, and southern rock and pop stuff, novelty tunes. Anything went. It was great. You knew if you didn't like the song that was playing, all you needed to do was stick around; the next one would surely be better.

Another cool thing about radio of the 70s (and early 80s): album cuts. Stations seemed to not care what went on at night, so as soon as the sun set you never knew what was going to be coming out of those speakers. I discovered some of the best songs that way.

Of course, I guess that kind of stuff ended when huge corporations took over radio. There are no small stations anymore, like the family-owned station we used to listen to as kids, good ol' WHIS. God forbid a station now can vary from a format or playlist. And that brings me to why I can only listen to oldies stations for a while. Why is it, if a station's format is songs of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, well, think about it! Three decades of music to choose from! Why do they play the same 25 songs over and over and over again till you want to puke? I need to own and operate an oldies station. I'll bet I could go a year and never repeat a record.

Anyway, listening to all those songs last night really brought back memories; in fact, I could kind of imagine myself being right back there in '77, '78.... I mean, hell, I was even in a green station wagon! Of course, it was the '99 Subaru, not the '74 Pinto Industrial Green Station Wagon, and I was wearing my seatbelt last night, and I'm sure I was driving a lot slower last night, even though I was on I-81.

I think another thing that makes radio suck might not necessarily be radio's fault. Music sucks nowadays. OK, OK, I know I've come here before and made that sweeping statement, and there is some good stuff out there, a little, if you really nose around. Maybe that's it; I'm just too old to care about nosing anymore.

But it seems to me it used to be that musical acts themselves were so different. They'd release an album of 12 or so songs, and every one of them would sound completely different. And when you took all the people who were popular at that time, all releasing albums of varied songs, then threw in the one-hit wonders as well, you just had a smorgasboard of stuff. Now it seems like every band releases one song over and over with a different title each time. It's bland, it's boring, and it's sad.

I still blame disco. I don't know why, but I guess I always will. Disco: Scapegoat of the Masses.

(Anyway, some of the songs that had me singing last night: "Excitable Boy," by Warren Zevon, "Spaceman" & "Jump Into The Fire," by Nilsson, "The Boys Are Back In Town," by Thin Lizzy, "It's Over," by Boz Scaggs, "Ariel," by Dean Friedman, "Baker Street," by Gerry Raffery along with "Stuck In The Middle With You," by Stealer's Wheel, "Give Me Love," by George Harrison, "Blockbuster," by the Sweet, "Cindy Incidentally," by the Faces, "The Man Who Sold The World," by David Bowie...well, the list goes on. It was a 90 minute drive each way.)