Who Hates Whom

[James Marshall Boswell <jboswel@emory.edu>]

Good poll question, as re: the most hated bands on Classic Rock stations. 
The thing is, all the bands getting mentioned over and over again--REO
Stationwagon, Boston, Genesis, Stynx, Journey, Foreigner, all that
late-Seventies album-oriented-rock bullshit--I've ALWAYS hated, even when
they were actual working groups putting out "much-anticipated" new albums. 
Today's "Classic Rock" stations sound exactly like those sorry
corporate-franchised sniveling fucking AOR stations of my youth, the same
stations whose DJs would snort at fifteen-year-old yours truly every time
he called up and asked, requested, pleaded for them to play, just once,
something, anything by someone or anyone important, interesting, worth
listening to for more than thirty seconds.  These stations sound just the
same, that is, with one tiny difference.  In those days you couldn't pay
those stations to play The Clash, the Jam, the Gang of Four, Joy Division
or PiL, even though they did throuw out a Talking Heads or Police tune
every now and again.  Years later they refused to play the Minutemen, X,
Black Flag, the Replacements, Husker Du, and, for awhile anyway (up to, at
least, Document) R.E.M.  Now these stations, in addition to their same old
same old of REO Styxwagon and Van Genesis, occasionally serve up the
Clash, the Talking Heads, and even R.E.M. as part of their diet of
"classic rock."  Meanwhile, the "alternative" station across the dial--all
of whose playlist bands owe a serious debt of gratitude and influence to
the British and American groups listed above-- plays "Husker Du"  and
"PiL" for nostalgia.  To little too late: The Clash, for instance, might
have shaken things up quite a bit had they been given, in their almighty
prime, the kind of exposure they deserved.  Now that they are just
nostalgia, now that they simply fit into a demographic ideal, now that
they have been reduced to one more name on a rigid playlist, they have
been stripped of all their provocative power, which is exactly why such
stations can play them now and could not play them then.  As a result of
the above, such stations turn everything they play into Hourney and
Foreigner--including The Who.  It's the Crap By Association phenomenon.
All of which explains why I don't really listen to rock radio, let alone
Classic Rock: I either own the records I want to hear or do not want to
hear what they are playing.  So instead of a list of bands I hate hearing
on classic rock stations, I'd rather cast a NO vote for classic rock
stations in general and in theory. 

Marshall