Country and Jazz

My Summer of New started off strong, then, predictably, began to falter.  Luckily, when it was novel and fresh and exciting, I'd made myself a little list of ideas, so when I noticed I was really having to reach to come up with a new thing to record at the end of the day ("My kid learned how to dive!  Wait, that's not my new thing.  I watched a movie I'd never seen before!  Yes, and...?), I used the list to get me going again.

Today was the day I listened to not-my-radio-station all day long.  Well, when I was in the car, which is the only time I listen to the radio.  The kids started a day camp across town, which very conveniently starts AND ends at the height of rush hour, so it was a couple of hours of drive time musical novelty.

The buttons in my car are programmed to:

1. Adult contemporary (Bob Marley to The Lumineers to Ray LaMontage to Sheryl Crow)
2. Alternative

I mostly switch back and forth between those two channels when ads come on, but sometimes I use the other buttons, which are, more or less in order of preference:

    3.  Classical music

    4.  the 80s station

    5. NPR

    6.  classic rock

So today, I programmed the second menu of buttons to the following:

    1.  Christian music

    2.  Jazz

    3.  the Spanish station

    4.  hip-hop

    5.  country

    6. top 40

Here's what I noticed:

• Both the hip-hop station and the top 40 station played "Fancy."  My only previous exposure to the song was when Jimmy Fallon lip synched to it.  I had just read this article by Brittney Cooper describing how Iggy, a white Australian, has co-opted black culture with this song, so I was both interested and slightly repulsed.  Also, I can't get it out of my head.  
• When I switched to the jazz station, I immediately wanted to switch away.  Jazz is so...twitchy.  Not enough melody.  I was grumbling to myself, 'It's like the clarinet and the piano are playing two different songs that happen to have the same beat."  Then I started counting the beat in my head, and suddenly it started making more sense to me.  I wound up listening to two more songs before an ad came on.  It's still not my cup of tea, but I bet it's fun to see live.
• The Christian station was boring.  Sorry, but it was.  
• I liked the music on the Spanish station--all that accordion music always reminds me of Eastern European songs--but the DJs were really shrieky.  
• So were the hip-hop DJs.  
• Top 40 was only slightly less dull than the Christian station.
• Surprise of the day--I was kind of digging the country station.  I'm not sure why they have to sing with a twang--in rock and pop, you can't tell if a singer is American, Swedish. British, or what, so don't tell me they're not intentionally twanging--but I am a sucker for story songs.  There were several that were okay, and one I came home and looked up.  Luke Bryan's "Play it Again."   I think I've heard his name, but I don't know any of his music.  

This was fun.  At first I had to remind myself not to switch away from the stations, but by the afternoon I would listen to several songs in a row, switching stations at ad breaks, like I normally do.  My listening to unfamiliar stations all day doesn't do any good for the world, but it was definitely a "break out of my rut" day.