When Top 40 Perceptions Become Top 40 Reality

My recent car troubles has forced me to drive Erica's car to and from work. I find this to be an incredible help, as it allows me to have my vehicle serviced and still attend work. Driving her car to work isolates me from my main comfort as a commuter -- XM Satellite Radio.

I've become dependent on XM ever since I started listening to it. It has over 100 music stations, sports, talk, etc, all of which I use and even depend on to get me through a week's worth of slow drivers, earth tone Buicks being driven by the elderly in hopes of finding coffee and donuts, school buses, cell phone chatters, and semi-trucks. Since Erica's car only has standard FM, I'm forced to rifle through the stations in the morning commute, desperately trying to find something worth listening to.

As I have done many times in the past two weeks of driving Erica's car, I happen to stumble across top 40 music, which, I have to say, makes me want to yell, kick, and scream, all in the same motion. It reminds me of when I was nine years old and came down with the chicken pox, and I felt so incredibly helpless, because I wanted to itch, cry, scratch, and dig all at the same time, but could do nothing.

I hate top 40 radio, and I know that I'm not alone. So why is it so popular? I have a theory.

Popular music, or top 40 radio, is a bunch of lifeless, unintelligent, easily-forgotten crap. Most people don't like it who listen to it I figure, so I have to wonder what causes people to listen to it. I have listened to a couple of top 40 call in shows, where people call in to request "Fergie" "Mary J. Blige" or "The Fray" for the 600th time, and seem so excited to do so, almost as if they've won a free vacation package. I have always found myself thinking, "How can they be so excited to hear a song that they've heard 2,100 times in the last week, and it wasn't that good to begin with?"

I have substantial proof (and by that I mean a wild guess) that these callers are in fact not actual people, but trained professionals who call in to request these songs one time, and the DJ's simply play their taped requests over and over throughout the following months. I'm convinced there must be a website somewhere on the Internet where DJ's can download different people calling in to request pop songs. In essence, the top 40 industry is creating the perception that people want to hear these songs, that other people enjoy them, that they are good, enjoyable, etc. This perception quickly becomes reality.

It's the only answer. No one I know wants to hear "Over My Head" by The Fray anymore. I think I may be on to something here...