So here�s the thing: Why do the powers that be insist on classifying radio stations by time period or musical genre? Who cares about these arbitrary distinctions? While we�re on the topic, who cares about the radio? �We� do not. Only those people who are forced to sit in their vehicles on a regular basis and are absentminded and procrastinatory (ooh, like that one) enough to fail to rotate their car cd�s frequently enough to satisfy their ADHD listening tendencies care about the radio. And, unless you live in one of the select cities in this country that has good radio, e.g. college hipsters playing dj or a real honest-to-goodness non-corporate maverick station, what is on the radio is bad, bad, bad. So. For those of us who are subjected to bad radio in our cars, I am advocating for radio stations that compile their play lists based on entirely on a type of mood. Isn�t this what we�re all after anyway, as we flip manically from alternacrap to classic rock to classical and back to alternacrap. Excluding NPR, of course. Which is not to say that Rob Seigle and crew are not evocative of a certain mood themselves�incredulity, perhaps, or big-brotherly paranoia.

One might argue (futilely) that we have already been bestowed a mood-based station by our local easy-listening call letters. I don�t know what easy-listening actually means�the shit is easy to listen to or hey, I�m easy, I�m an audiowhore and I�ll listen to anything? No matter: easy-listening is not a mood. It is anathema to emotion of any kind. Easy-listening is practically existential, so disturbing is it in its vapidity. Only very sick, detached, unfeeling people (like Khrushchev or Linda Tripp) should be able to relate to this music. All those receptionists in dentist offices out there? Sickos.

But look, if all you want is a raucous, damn I feel fine on a sunny afternoon song, does it matter if the song to fit your mood comes out of Dopey Dude�s vinyl vault or off of some stupid 3rd Eye Blind album? When you feel like kicking someone�s ass, doesn�t Wagner always hit that sweet spot with you? When you are feeling sort of emotionally goopy and lovey-dovey, do you care if Boston comes on or that saccharine No Doubt song where Gweny actually whines about how happy she is? What is it with the whining? Could it be adenoids?

If it�s on the radio it�s going to suck anyway, so why are you making me flip endlessly through the suck to find the song that will speak to me at that moment? I am going to get carpal tunnel syndrome from my commute alone, to say nothing of the disfigured little claws on my right hand that are my flipping fingers. How about a station that plays all Nick Cave all the time for those dark days? How about the drippy, poppy, boppy station for days such as this? How about some darn quality over quantity on the stupid dial?

Did I mention I saw the New Pornographers last week? That show was so cute it was fuzzy.

P.S. The jazz station here is pretty good so no complaints. Jazz is kind of omni-mood music anyhow. Hip-hop oddly blows around here on the airwaves unless you like your Fitty Cent on the hour, every hour, yo.