The Oldies Station

Ah, Memorial Day weekend.

Usually I don't mind working on holidays. The building is relatively quiet, the phone doesn't ring more than three or four times, and usually the head honchos of the department have opted not to come in, thereby reducing the chances that they might demand a ridiculously complicated report with an unmeetable deadline.

Today, however, is different. While I'm still alone in the office and the phones are blissfully silent, there's one thing nagging at me and making me wish I was elsewhere, something that I can do nothing about: I am missing the top 100 of the Modern Rock 500 right now.

Some of you may recall me waxing nostalgic about the loss of 97X last year. When it returned to the airwaves (the internet ones, at least) a generation of music lovers breathed a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, due to the lapse of time between the closing of the FM-broadcasted station and the securing of funding for the internet-only station, Memorial Day weekend had come and gone and for the first time in several years, there was no soundtrack for the holiday.

(For those of you not familiar with the Modern Rock 500, it was pretty much what it sounds like - a countdown of the 500 most influential alternative rock songs. The list was ridiculously eclectic, by no means objective, and highly debatable. It was fun to find out where your favorite songs placed and argue why they should have been higher on the countdown, whether relatively new songs should have placed in the higher echelons of the chart, and whether "How Soon is Now?" would once again be ranked at #1. It pretty much served as the background for my Memorial Day weekends for years, no matter what I was doing.)

Imagine my surprise when I came across an article in the local paper announcing that not only was the Modern Rock 500 being revived, it would be used to highlight the grand unveiling of a second station in the WOXY family: WOXY Vintage. The website defines it as "the first new 24/7 streaming channel from WOXY.com dedicated to the history of Modern Rock, Alternative and Punk music. You'll hear nearly 30 years of adventurous, innovative and influential music from The Velvet Underground, The Clash, Talking Heads, The Smiths, Depeche Mode and much more. Consider it your Modern Rock primer."

This is just further proof that I am now officially over the hill. First the looming thoughts of my 20 year reunion (which I have decided to attend, just for a laugh), then the nostalgic silliness of the 80s prom last month, and now an oldies station devoted exclusively to my tastes. (While I like the regular WOXY programming, I find myself out of the loop on the newer bands. And because I'm old and cranky, I find myself wishing they would play more stuff that I knew and liked.)

Here's an example of the whiplash-inducing eclecticness of the new station (taken from a timeslot when the Modern Rock 500 was not going on):
1:30am Veruca Salt - Shutterbug
1:26am XTC - Generals And Majors
1:22am The Cure - Doing The Unstuck
1:18am The Pretenders - The Wait
1:16am The Ramones - I Wanna Be Sedated
1:12am The B-52s - Legal Tender
1:06am The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead
1:03am The Cranberries - Free To Decide
1:00am The Dead Milkmen - Bitchin' Camaro
12:57am The Velvet Underground - Satellite Of Love

*sigh* Why doesn't my computer at work have a sound card? Why don't we have wi-fi here? (Yes, I brought my laptop in with me just in case. No dice.) Why am I torturing myself by monitoring the "last 10 songs spun" list so I can see what I'm missing? (They started off today's portion of the 500 with "I Don't Like Mondays" at #100. Damn, how appropriate.) Should "Seven Nation Army" be in the top 100, ranking higher than "Bizarre Love Triangle"? And what will be #1 this year?

Points to ponder. Until then, you kids get off my lawn!