April 6, 2005
SFist Rants: Why No Top 40?
You know.... why don't we have a top 40 radio station?? Ever since the death of the beloved Z 95.7 (for a classic rock format, which was then later changed to country), there's no place in San Francisco to tune in for those naggingly-catchy Kelly Clarkson and Ashleeeeee (so many e's!) Simpson tracks. (There's a top 40 station in Fremont and in Santa Rosa, but we can't get them in SF proper). How are we supposed to participate in pop culture if we can't even hear that abysmal new Britney Spears strip-joint song? We try to keep up by watching MTV Hits, but -- man, those kids on TRL are annoying.
Sure, we can hear the slower mainstream pop tunes on Yawn 101.3 and we can catch the crunky on our Clear Channel hip-hop affiliates -- but part of what we like about top 40 radio is the cross-genre mixing! We like hearing the new Mariah next to the new Eminem next to the J.Lo next to the Ciara! And while we can download what we like on iTunes or Musicmatch, we're certainly never going to spend even 99 cents on schlock like Ryan Cabrera or Jesse McCartney, so we'll realistically never really listen to them anymore -- and thus we can't even be as fully contemptuous of them as we might be if we sort of absorbed them while stuck at a red light or finishing up that last 3 minutes on the Bowflex machine. We're being hampered in our snark!
So someone, please -- like Ms. Spears-Federline says -- Do Somethin'! (na na na na na na, na na na na NA na na na, do somethin'.)
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Careful what you wish for.
And considering how R&B/Hip-Hop heavy the charts are, and how no local acts get play on KMEL, wouldn't that practically be Top 40?
Well, in my vision of the perfect SF top 40 station, it would basically be all the fun songs from 94.9 and 106.1, minus those scary overly-anatomically-correct R&B tunes (you know, the ones like, "I'm going to lick your sacro-iliac region"), with a healthy sprinkling of uptempo songs by the blindingly-white artists of Yawn 101.3, plus maybe a few of the crossover alterna-crunchies from Alice and Live 105, and Britney Spears. They never play Britney Spears on Star (because she's trashy, that's why).
Well, you could always assemble a playlist a week and podcast it -- SFist would be happy to host the Torrent of the podcast! Or you could start a pirate Top 40 station! Of course, the sheer irony would cause the universe to implode, but still, funny.
When they came for the giant mainstream mass-media conglomerates, I said nothing.
If you have digital cable, Comcast offers a top 40 music station. Of course, what's a top-40 station without 23 minutes of ads per hour plus some distantly-located Clear Channel jock talking over the first 20 seconds of each song?