Public Service Announcement 003: The Billboard Top 40.

I shouldn't have to say this, but every once in a while, turn off your fucking television and listen to something not being pushed into your brain by ClearChannel or Viacom. The situation is ridiculous nowadays. Honestly, it's not that hard to expand your boundaries if you're so inclined, and nowadays new music is literally a mouse-click away. No excuses. I'll be 35 in a few months (yes, this fact saddens me a little), and I'll be damned if I let some countdown run by a faceless corporation continue to dictate what should be vibrating my eardrums.


I know too many people in my age group who only listen to one type of music, claiming that other genres hold no interest for them. Okay. I'm not mad at that reasoning, but in my opinion it's self-limiting. No one genre can capture the entire range of emotion/atmosphere/feeling/ambiance that I need to experience to feel satisfied musically. Which is why my collection looks almost schizophrenic. I'd say that of the music I currently listen to, 90% of it was discovered via some independent discussion board or blog, and almost none of it will ever touch the Billboard 200. And that's okay.

Note: This is not to say that pop music shouldn't be liked or doesn't have a place. It definitely does -- I very well can't dance to Lights Out Asia, for instance. And I'm the first to admit that a sizable chunk of some of the stuff in my playlists has a pop influence to it. but the Top 40 isn't the end-all-be-all. That's the beauty of the music "industry" today -- you don't have to like what's put in front of you. You can make your own decisions.

Or maybe I'm just getting old. Yeah ... it's probably that.