The Zoso Zone

My daughter received a Barbie CD player (shut up) for her birthday.  It is pink and dainty and also has an AM/FM radio.  The majority of the time, the radio is on, tuned to our local classic rock station.  See, Mia’s just a classic rock kinda girl.

This past weekend the radio was on almost constantly.  No less than six times did I walk into her room on Saturday to hear a Led Zeppelin song.  Now, I’m a big Zeppelin fan.  I own the posters.  I've read Hammer Of The Gods.  I know what those brilliant but sick bastards did with sharks.  They were one of my first musical loves.  But, uh, guys…six Zeppelin songs in the space of 8 or 10 hours?  For the record, the selections were Over The Hills And Far Away, Good Times Bad Times, Stairway To Heaven, Hey Hey What Can I Do, Kashmir,and Black Dog.

[Oddly enough, I walked in to Boston tunes on at least three occasions.  Boston who has made a mere three classic rock-worthy albums.  Admittedly I’m not counting the latest of the band’s efforts which merely sounded like pale imitations of the original band.  Those wouldn’t turn up on even the worst classic rock station.]

After my run-ins with Zeppelin and Boston, I started paying attention to the programming.  I was amazed by what I discovered.  Not only are they playing Zeppelin something like 84 times a day, they're not digging deep into the catalog at all.  Worse was the prevalence of ok but largely inconsequential bands like Boston, Foreigner and Styx.  Worse than that?  Peter Gabriel's In Your Eyes, U2's One and Bon Jovi's Wanted Dead or Alive!  I was listening to those just...uh...oh crap...20 years ago!  Nowhere to be found were Cream, The Who, CSNY, The Band or Dylan.  Instead, Hendrix's Purple Haze was in heavy rotation with no other songs from the axe-man in sight.  Bad Company made a cursory appearance with Shooting Star, the most obvious but not best choice.  And Thorogood's Bad To The Bone was heard on no less than two separate occasions (of course, it could have been any Thorogood song since they all sound exactly the same).

This certainly isn't the musical diversity I want my child exposed to!  A world without the androgynous Ziggy Stardust or the hushed tones of Nick Drake?  I don't think so.  I guess it's time to pull another playlist together for my daughter.  And turn the radio off.