Radio.

Who the hell are Munford and Sons?

There's a reason i don't know this. Even though the Nashville area is one of the "fastest-growing metropolitan areas in America," there's still a few things we don't have that other places take for granted. We have no Trader Joe's. Starbucks are few and far between. I've never seen a Chipotle. And there isn't a radio station that plays hipster music...

...there are a few big country stations, of course. A few classic rock stations (Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, AC/DC.) There's an easy-listening pop station for office people (Celine Dion, Madonna, Matchbox 20.) There's a really crappy alternative station that plays nothing but sludgy nu-metal (Sevendust, Hinder, Papa Roach.) There's an automatic DJ station that plays fairly decent random stuff (Green Day, Elton John, REM.) There's a station that keeps crooning alive (Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Perry Como.) There's an R&B station (Frank Ocean, John Legend, Rafael Saddiq), and then there's 101.1 Tha Beat Jamz, which plays nothing but the newest, loudest, and worst rap music imaginable (Chris Brown, Nikki Minaj, Rick Ross.)
...but there isn't a white hipster station. So i've never heard Munford and Sons, just like i never heard of Gotye until my brother asked me to download his album. Remember back in 2005 when everyone was complaining they they couldn't go anywhere without hearing Deathcab for Cutie's "Soul Meets Body?" I never heard it until my brother came back from his 3-month stint working in Seattle. The Arcade Fire. The White Stripes. Wilco. Interpol. The Kings of Leon. The Black Keys. Those bands just don't get played around these parts. I read that Jack White has a house right down the road in Franklin where he lives near Nicole Kidman and Billy Ray Cyrus... i can see why he would want to live here, because almost nobody would recognize him.

The station that should be filling this void is 107.5 FM. Those call numbers still sound slightly magical to me. Back in the late '80s, it was pretty much our link to the wider music world -- since almost no one had MTV, it was the only outlet that played new music for people under the age of forty. Genesis. MC Hammer. Vanilla Ice. Whitesnake. Def Leppard. Whitney Houston. All spun by a Hawaiin-shirt-wearing cokehead DJ named "Coyote" McCloud and the Zoo Crew. Sounds pretty retro now, but back then, it was the future. The nightly Top Ten Countdown was required listening for nearly every kid in middle and high school. At 7:00 every night, we'd turn off TV's and Ataris and turn on the radio, because goddamnit, at some point they're going to play "The Humpty Dance" and i'm not going to miss that.

Good memories.

Sadly, 107.5 FM is now "The River" and all they play is Katy Perry. Seriously, all they play is Katy fucking Perry. And that chick that sounds like Katy Perry.
I know, i need to come into the future and get satellite radio or Pandora or whatever. But i haven't yet, because i'm still up to my neck in CD's. The next time i buy a new car, i might have to make that leap.

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