By Wes J. Pimentel

Most of us like music. Most of us dislike Chinese water torture. For these two reasons, the subject of this next invective can be considered one of the most evil organizations on the planet. More sinister than Enron, twice as malicious as the people responsible for the Teletubbies; I’m speaking, of course, of Clear Channel Radio.

You may not know this, but Clear Channel Radio has begun to systematically buy up every radio station in the country in an effort to stamp out originality and musical creativity and replace it with shit like snap music and Ashlee Simpson. Right now some of you are saying, “Hold on, I like what’s on the radio!” This might be true, but it’s a matter of perspective. Allow me to explain with an analogy.

You’re stranded out in the desert with no food or drink. Every day a little truck drives out there with only three food items to offer you; shit burritos, vomit burgers, and pizza made entirely of human mucus. At some point, since you’re starving, you would eat something. You’d probably end up trying all of them and even developing preferences. Before too long you would actually start eagerly anticipating the food truck. You would probably even say stuff like, “I can’t wait for my next shit burrito!” Does this mean shit burritos are good? No. This is what I mean by a matter of perspective. You may “like” what you hear on the radio, but it has nothing to do with quality. It’s mind control.

The perfect example is “snap music.” You may have heard of it. It’s the worst form of hip-hop ever created. When I first started seeing this trash on video shows and hearing it over the airwaves, people were practically outraged. “Laffy Taffy” was received like a punch in the gut. I remember people saying, “It’s an embarrassment to the South,” and, “This is the worst shit to ever come out of the South,” and, “Someone please shut this shit off before I shoot myself in the face” (that last one was me). Low and behold, it started creeping its way up the countdowns. All-of-a-sudden the SAME people who were criticizing it just a couple of weeks prior, were now singing along, snapping to the beat, and even mimicking the dance. Even me!! I was leaning with it and rocking with it and I hate the shit! What is wrong with us? Are we this easy to control?! Obviously, yes. The music doesn’t change. It sucks now just as it did the first day, but there we are like, “I’d like another shit burrito, please!”

Ashlee Simpson has sold MILLIONS of albums. MILLIONS!! Do you remember tracking her career as she came up in the industry? Neither do I. No one does, because it never happened. Some record company executive made a deal with Clear Channel to make sure this vomit burger got so many “spins” per hour on every station that plays that genre. They had the video for her first hit single filmed before anyone even heard the song. Why? Because they know that after hearing the shit a couple dozen times it doesn’t matter what it is, people are going to “like” it. They know we’re mindless robots and they act accordingly. It happens in every genre; country, rap, pop, rock, nothing is safe.

It used to be that albums were recorded and sold, we sampled them and chose our favorite songs, THEN requested to hear them more and more and the hits were born. Not so anymore. Now hits are born in record company offices and television studios. Now, they pick the hits, strike deals with Clear Channel to ram them down our throats a thousand times a day and film the “hit videos” before the tracks are ever even on a countdown. We believe we have some control because we “vote” for what we want to hear. Little do we know it’s just a couple record companies putting out all the music, so they don’t care if we pick one worthless rapper over another. It’s all the same to them. They’re going to keep sticking to their money-making formula and we’re going to keep giving them our money because taking an active role in choosing our music is too much effort. We’d rather let Puff Daddy make all our music decisions for us. Tell me what’s cool, Diddy, tell me what’s cool!

Have you noticed how one-hit wonder and over-night success stories have seemed to be multiplying exponentially over the last couple decades? It’s no accident. Instant, flash-in-the-pan success is the by-product of this sort of marketing and promoting. It’s the reason why truly creative artists have so much contempt for “The Industry,” and even fear becoming too successful too quickly, lest they be grouped together with the likes of B2K and N’Sync.

This disgusting corporate war against artistry is what allows stuff like Lil’ Bow Wow rapping about “Keep[in’] it thuggin’” to happen, when we know he’s been rich way too long to ever have been a thug (unless he was doing drive-by’s on his tricycle). Try telling all the thirteen-year-old white-girls who buy his albums he’s not “gangsta”. If Jermaine Dupri says he has “street credibility,” that’s all we need. He’s gotta know what he’s talking about; he’s rich, black and famous. Thanks, J.D., I almost had to develop an opinion. That was close.