Man vs. Machine

Man Vs. Machine (Part 2): A Very Extended Commercial Break

nOvaMatic  |  11/08/2007 at 12:00 PM  |  Comments (2)

Welcome to the second installment of "Man vs. Machine" in which I, SoulBounce HNIC, listen to one hour of mainstream urban radio and document my "findings" along with the type of commentary that only your friendly SB editors can provide. Perhaps by the end of this experiment, I will have:

• Learned what all the kids are listening to.
• Reconciled all the trash I talk here on SoulBounce.
• Had my ears voluntarily lanced off.
  

I decided to try a different station this week to see if I'd fare any better. Surprise! NOT.

6:00  It's the 6 o'clock hour so you know what that means! Complete, unadulterated buffoonery! Could you negroes be screaming any louder? I mean, I'm sitting right next to you!

6:04  DUFFEL BAG BOY! Already they pissin' me off. How much do you wanna bet I'll hear the same songs as last week, even though this is a different station?

6:08  Uh oh! A new joint! No wait, it's Go-Go. NEXT! (No diss to Go-Go, I'm a DC native and current occupant. However, just like Hip-Hop, this new-fangled, automated Go-Go makes me want to hurt myself.)

6:13  The banter is wack. Now they're talking about T.I. Thankfully, they aren't on some "Free T.I." ish. I would've cut the radio off and said "Screw this blog entry."
6:15 And after a whopping two songs, we go to commercial!

6:24  Damn, after almost 10 minutes we're back with "Soulja Girl" by SOULJA BOY TELL 'EM. I was so correct with my assessment at 6:04. This bull$#!+.....

6:27  Ok, Gucci Mane's "Freaky Gurl." Kinda mad at this joint for jacking the hell out of Joi. SIDEBAR: Why is DC so hard up for some South-sounding ish? Mason-Dixon line be damned!

6:32  I'm going to ignore the banter to post this brief FYI via Wikipedia:

[Redacted] also has been a debated topic amongst radio experts about its format classification as a Rhythmic Contemporary Hit Radio station even though it really operates musically as a Mainstream Urban. The evidence is obvious with the vast majority of its listening audience being African American (according to Arbitron) as well as nearly all of its on-air personalities. In 1987, when the current format on [redacted] was introduced it was actually a mix of R&B, hip-hop, dance and pop titles, similar to what many other Rhythmic Hit stations around the country were doing, but somewhere between then and the late 1990's the station changed to virtually all R&B and hip-hop while retaining its classification. The station defends its format classification by arguing that its target audience is African American and Hispanic listeners within the 18-34 demographic. Many critics say the ability to attract more mainstream advertisers as Rhythmic, rather than Urban, is the real reason. However, as of August 11, 2006, R&R moved [redacted] to the Urban Contemporary Airplay Panel due to its overtly obvious Hip-Hop/R&B playlist with little to no Rhythmic songs.

In short, they play crap all day. And any 34-year-old that voluntarily turns this on and listens for more than 15 minutes needs to be slapped with a bag of nickels. I'm just sayin'...

6:34  Are they still yapping about an event that no doubt requires you to show a rap sheet upon entry? Can I get a song please?

6:37 Commercials! Gotta pay the bills, I suppose.

6:46  A T.I. joint is on. "You Know What it Is." Didn't this song drop in June? "What You Know". "You Know Who." "You Don't Know Me." This cat will never be hard-up for a song title, obvs.

6:49  Ok, another Dirty South joint about poppin' bottles. These rappers just don't care anymore. Also, can I get an R&B song? I mean, DAMN.

6:53  Thank god that's over. Now they're talkin' greasy about Alicia Keys past acne problems. Friendly!

6:56  Commercials. Shocker. Hopefully 7:00 will hit before they come back. And with these 10 minute commercial breaks, that doesn't sound like an impossibility.

7:00 And I'm out!

To re-cap, that was 6 songs in one hour. Don't ask me why I'm bitter.

Tags: live-blog, radio, t.i.