What hits?

One of the downsides of being an iPod fiend with a truly monolithic MP3 collection is that you develop a bubble around yourself that stunts your growth as a music nerd. You start losing touch with new music because you're listening to nothing but your library. So every now and then I take a break from being my car's personal DJ to listen to one of the local alternative rock stations - Live 105 or KWOD out of Sacramento, specifically - to get up to speed with what the kids are listening to nowadays. This usually lasts about a day or two before I get sick of hearing Linkin Park and once again reconcile myself to dinosaur-hood, but what I keep being surprised by is how certain songs that came out years back are still getting airplay. I'm not talking about The Clash or The Smiths or other legitimate giants of the format, I'm talking about one-hit-wonders from 10 years ago that programmers must think me and the other Gen-Xers are just dying to hear again. You know, because we're so nostalgic about 1998. "Hey, remember that time we were all slamming Jell-O shots and 'Closing Time' came on, and we were all like, whoa, it's about us?"

So I've been whittling out a list of One-Hit-Wonders That Have Undeservedly Attained Classic Status. I followed an extremely scientific method: I forced myself to listen to FM radio for a few weeks and jotted down anything that A) sucked, B) no, really sucked, and C) was a one-hit-wonder that is still getting semi-regular airplay.

But what is a one-hit-wonder? I've instituted a five year statute of limitations from the point your big radio hit came out. If you can't score another big single in five years, guess what? You're officially washed up. Enjoy the county fair circuit.

(I call this the Radiohead Statute. If you knew when "Creep" came out that that band would turn into RADIOHEAD just a few short years later, I'd like to know where your money's invested since you're clearly a visionary.)

So here we go. Radio station programmers, feel free to strike any or (hopefully) all of these songs from your rotation.

"Sex and Candy" by Marcy Playground. Marcy Playground is for people suffering from severe insomnia. Ask your doctor before trying Marcy Playground. Do not operate heavy machinery while listening to Marcy Playground. Do not consume Marcy Playground with alcohol.

"Bound for the Floor" by Local H. Why don't they put this out for Rock Band? I can't imagine it'd be more than one or two buttons on the guitar - I could totally five star it! But, mindless robotic bassline aside, it did inspire a generation to look up "copacetic" in the dictionary. It turns out it doesn't mean "tastes like coppa". Now my doctoral thesis makes ZERO sense.

"Flagpole Sitta" by Harvey Danger. "Fingertips have memories/mine can't forget the curves of your body". Yikes. I need like six showers after hearing that shit. Especially when it's sung by THAT dude.

"Possum Kingdom" by The Toadies. Yeah, this song's somehow both creepy and dull, but it stands out in my mind because it featured perhaps the ugliest example of the Chick Bassist trend that dominated 90's alterna-rock bands. I know what you thinking, "That's needlessly cruel, Mr. Glasshouse-Dwelling Rockchucker". Well fuck her and fuck this whole band. I've been hearing this song for over a decade, and my tuner knob is getting worn out from constantly changing channels whenever I hear the opening riff.

"My Own Worst Enemy" by Lit. This one's cheating a bit because they actually had another hit, the equally execrable but easily forgotten (by me, anyway) "Miserable". But c'mon, don't begrudge me this inclusion. This song blows like a cyclone. And it has the same terrible seesawing LOUD-normal-LOUD vocal "Flagpole Sitta" had. It's like these bands got together and said "Kurt Cobain used to go soft verse/loud chorus and he made a bunch of money. Why don't we do that on every other word?" Also, compare and contrast this video with "Flagpole Sitta" - is it a rule that every video from this period had to look like Swingers?

"Closing Time" by Semisonic. This song's not really terrible exactly. It's catchy enough. But even when I was only an aspiring drunk (I was 21 when it came out), I thought it was way too uptempo and dopey to be a decent drinking song, which a lot of bars seem to mistake it for. Drunks don't want to hear Semisonic. We want to hear Tom Waits or The Pogues, or if we're in a certain kind of drunken state, Leonard Cohen.

"Standing Outside a Broken Phone Booth With Money in My Hand" by Primitive Radio Gods. The song's as pompous as its title suggests, so I'll give it points for truth in advertising. The sad thing is people don't remember it for those really deeeeeep lyrics that the dude probably spent like a whole weekend creating ("You swim like lions through the crest and bathe yourself in zebra flesh"). They remember it for the perfectly good B.B. King sample they appropriated because they couldn't write a hook to save their lives.