Very Short List

I think I need to cancel my membership in VSL's daily e-mail nuggets of wisdom and joy... I simply cannot afford buying everything they suggest, and my Amazon wish list is growing to unruly proportions...

Submitted for your approval, internet, science shows that it's OK to love your music... http://www.veryshortlist.com/vsl/daily.cfm/review/559/Book/the-world-in-six-songs-how-the-musical-brain-created-human-nature/

Survey Culture

Yeah, I know, I owe the nation a blog post about better by-state music options than a bunch of hip Bostoners can come up with... It's taking a while... Don't blame me, blame North Dakota...

In the mean time, something completely random has hit me after getting yet another request to complete an online service survey, this time from my bank.

When did this start? Have big businesses across our country ALWAYS needed daily affirmations from their customers, or is there a belief my time is less valuable than my parents time was because I have the ability to go online to answer useless questions? C'mon guys, I don't have time for that, what with my blog surfing, obsessing about psych-rock, and endlessly searching for some heretofore unknown holy grail of useless cinema... (Of which The Tenebrous Empire may have uncovered...)

If Best Buy, Home Depot, Starbucks, JC Penney, Target, my car dealer, my bank, local grocery store, regular eateries, and online retailers want to know if I'm happy with their service, perhaps they should take a look and see if I purchase goods and/or services from them more than once. If I have been a customer before, and I come back to partake in their particular brand of business again, then there is an above-average chance that I am happy with their service...

Keep in mind, I'm not advocating a complete lack of outlet for consumers to complain, or praise. I think it's a tremendous advancement that the Internet allows customers to anonymously post positive or negative feedback about a purchasing experience they have had. At the same time, each and every time I buy a DVD, a box of nails, or go out to dinner I am not likely to have a sublimely good or bad experience. For the most part, my purchasing excursion is going to be unremarkable, and as such, not something I would have any desire to comment about...

SO STOP ASKING ME TO!

And now a word to my bank... I have been a customer for eleven years... If I was unhappy with the service, you likely would have known about it 10 or so years ago when I closed my account... Since that hasn't happened, take solace in the fact I still pay you each month for the right to pay my bills online... You're already taking my money, stop trying to waste my time too.

One could say 'Hey Asshole, in the amount of time you've spent writing this inflammatory useless garbage, you could have just taken the damn survey and made your bank feel all warm and fuzzy inside.' While you may be correct, I would still be stuck choking on this cathartic rant, wondering if my bank really wanted me to answer their questions, or were secretly trying to tell me they wanted to go on a date...

Either way, I've gone a bit off base here. My point was not to rail against the individual purveyors of this new 'survey culture', but more to point out to others, who may not have noticed, that this new trend in business practice is upon us, and man is it annoying. Take note the next time you are making a retail purchase at a store, online, or even just checking your e-mail... I'll bet you end up with a plea for acceptance. 'Please oh please nameless one, tell us you LOVE the way we bag your groceries...'

What's more, it seems that survey culture has replaced good old fashioned customer service. Keep in mind, I grew up in the 80's, so I'm not talking about the 'good old days' when gas stations featured service attendants or when your local butcher knew your name, I'm just talking about the recent past, before the Internet, when a check out clerk would say 'and how was everything today' rather than, 'here's a code to take an online survey... NEXT'

I'm a pretty easy sell. I usually go into a retailer knowing what I want, and open to a positive purchasing experience. Often, if it happens, I will seek out an avenue to write something nice about an employee, or the overall experience. I do this because I've worked retail jobs, and understand the challenge of dealing with the public at large. That said, if an establishment cannot provide the level of service that would make an 'easy' customer want to seek out an avenue to praise their service, begging every customer to reveal their level of enjoyment at said service is not likely to lead to positive, or accurate results.

What I'm getting at here is that this trend toward surveys is ruining the customer interaction experience, it's wasting consumer's time, and to top it off, isn't even providing the retailer with useful data... I beg you, uber-successful captains of industry who obviously take to the blogosphere to see what every day citizens think of you, stop this surveying madness... Stand up and say "I'm mad as hell, and I don't care what you think about it on a scale of one to five in which one is 'entirely unsatisfied' and five is 'thoroughly orgasmic'!" Take a stand to train your employees to glean useful information for your customers. Or better yet, do what every business did in the 90's, stop caring what your customers think, and just buy up all the competition!

Now, if you wouldn't mind taking a little survey on this post...

The Fifty State Project

I just have to share... Every band or artist who's not from either New York or Boston, Mass. is from California. That's just the way it is... Except of course for America, who are from London... Huh? Yeah... You heard right Internets...

Inspired By Anger

OK, perhaps 'Anger' is kind of harsh... Maybe, 'Inspired by Rock-Snob Geekery to Disagree with Dissenting Opinions at All Costs' would be a more apt title... Either way, I'll take inspiration where I can get it, and this is just as good a source as any...

http://thephoenix.com/Supplements/2008/50States/

The attached link is kind of a train-wreck of what Boston area hipsters do when killing time at the local Starbucks. For the most part, I can 'grain of salt' this kind of stuff and remember that not everyone is as savvy as I am when it comes to musical taste... I continue on knowing that few are as full of themselves. That makes me feel better, and that is, after all, what REALLY matters.

Ummm... A Point! THAT'S what I'm missing here! Below is a break down of both the head-against-a-wall inducing errors, and the small handful of blind-squirrels-found-some-nuts descent choices of the whole list. Feel free to give each one a read, complete with the somewhat humorous and always snarky rationales behind them, but at the end of the day, I'm sure you'll agree that some, if not most of these are WAY off base.

As a result, I shall begin working on an epic post, not quite 0f 'Why The Grammy's Blow' proportions, but still, larger, and more researched than the average. It may take a few days, some teeth gnashing, a fair amount of gut wrenching guilt, and likely more than one mistake along the way, but I'm going to assemble my OWN 50 state list...

As an aside, I tend to not believe that artists are deserving of a spot on MY list just because they currently happen to be playing free shows in crappy Midwestern bars, so as a result, there will be NO 'best new band' by state. Instead, I'll go Best Band, Best Artist, and Honorable Mention, going to, in my opinion, the most under rated band or solo performer from the state.

But first, before I partake in my grand nationwide tour, it's time to lambaste others for their poor taste and obvious lack of effort...

Florida: Lynyrd Effing Skynyrd! Off the top of my head, I can't shoot out an alternate Florida band, but I guaran-damn-tee that I will research this to the ends of the earth until I find a suitable replacement... Lynyrd Skynyrd will never, EVER, be the best of anything, except perhaps the best example of why being spontaneously stricken deaf might not be so bad... Oh no, wait, that one goes to our NEXT misapplied entrant...

Delaware: George Thorogood... Yep... THAT one... I realize Delaware is a painfully small state that likely is not as rich in musical influences as say New York, California, Massachusetts, Washington... Well, probably anywhere except maybe Wyoming, but from where I'm standing, this guy couldn't even win Wyoming... Earlier on this very blog I opined about the grave mistakes we made as a people during the 80's when it came to what is actually entertaining. In many ways we have made up for those mistakes by learning from them. Please don't set back 20+ years of human development by reintroducing the youth of the nation to 'Bad To The Bone'. I'd go so far as to say that the Thorogood Crisis matches, if not EXCEEDS, Global Warming as the #1 threat to humanity by and large in the coming years. Only YOU can prevent drunken bar-room bravado...

New York: The list of 'misses' could go on and on until it occupies over 75 of the total 153 entrants on the list (They gave DC it's own list, a bold move representing the un-represented...) I fear if I break down every single error in detail, I'll overshadow the importance of this incredibly pathetic choice. As far as solo artists go, New York has got to be top-of-the-heap when it comes to potential suitors, especially since the list liberally chose the states in which performers ascended, as opposed to just where they were born. That being the case, two performers, lauded quite heavily in the sites comments section, Billy Joel and Paul Simon would both have made excellent, almost untouchable choices for the award... So naturally, they went with Mary J. Blige...

Ummm... WHAT!!?!

Perhaps the boys in Boston were just trying to prove they're 'Urban'... If that's the case, I could have let them slide with Biggie, or even Puffy but give me a break... If the Faboo Ms. MJB happens upon this little nugget whilst ego-surfing, I'm sure she would immediately call her publicist and ask how much it cost to get thrown onto the list... I'd go so far as to say that even Mama Blige, if she is still with us, would not agree that her daughter trumps Rhythm Simon or The Piano Man. I'm not one for Internet cliches, but this is definitively an EPIC FAIL...

OK, enough with the venom... There were some good choice on the list. Some of them seemingly obvious, going with The Beach Boys for California, REM and Ray Charles for Georgia, letting the people make the choice between Bob Dylan and Prince for Minnesota. All this proves is that at least one person on the staff of The Phoenix has actually listed to music at some point in their lifetime. Admittedly though, there were some great calls outside of the no-brainers...

Connecticut: They made the right choice going with Liz Phair as the top solo performer. It's too bad they then spent her half paragraph calling her a sell out... No matter, I can overlook reasoning, at least they made the right call. One commenter felt John Mayer would have been a better choice. They are wrong. Another commenter said 'what has john mayer given to this world besides headaches and diarrhea?' They are right. Huzzah, mattmatt... Huzzah indeed...

Idaho: I'm roughly as familiar with acts from Idaho as I am with the up-and-coming acts currently tooling around Baghdad. That being the case, I was taken aback at the opportunity to agree with their selection of Josh Ritter. I happened upon Mr. Ritter whist watching an episode of Letterman and was impressed enough to seek out his recordings. An A+ for Dave who's show also introduced me to one of my all time favorite Canadian rock ensembles, Metric. Kudos Mr. Letterman on a job well done and Kudos Phoenix for finding Idaho's hidden treasure... Hold on... I smell a new Huell Howser series in the making...

Texas: Is there a state that screams southern-fried-rock louder than Tejas? As a result, you'd expect the shit-kickingest of the bunch, perhaps, ZZ Top, to top the list of Texas rock royalty... I expected it, I expected to think 'ZZ Top (or some other ridiculous rock cliche)! Seriously! How lame!' Instead, just as I was about to shut down the whole list without giving the last eight entrants their just viewings, The Phoenix, pardon the allusion, rose from the ashes of it's own Blige-induced delirium and selected an unsung rock gem oft praised but less-oft listened to. A personal favorite, The 13th Floor Elevators... If you like psych-rock and are not familiar with Roky Erikson and the boys of the 13th floor, then do yourself a favor and pick up their The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators. It'll rock the whammy bar clean off your particular axe of choice... If you are not a fan of 60's psychedelia, then go away, square...

Much like the badness, I shan't list all the goodness for fear it will dilute just how bad the overall badness really is. Look for yourself, for every slight twinge of joy, there's a kick-in-the-balls dose of pain. For every soft, soothing affirmation that you haven't slipped into your own personal Twilight Zone, there is a hip-for-hip's sake blues legend carted out like a 'History of Rock and/or Roll' text book. For example, and I promise, this'll be the last one, either Mississippi or Tennessee NEEDS to pay homage to The King. Personally, I am not a huge Elvis Presley fan... For my money he's the 2nd best recording artist named Elvis... However, I respect the awesome influential power that earned him the moniker King. I know music aficionados everywhere are scared of losing their geek cards if they speak ill of Robert Johnson or Aretha Franklin, and I don't mean to buck the hipster anti-establishment, but neither of them is Elvis Presley. There. I said it. He didn't write his own songs, and was a merely passing guitar player. In spite of that, he was the biggest musician of his era, and debatably the biggest solo musician of all time. If Michael Jackson is worthy of inclusion both as a member of The Jackson 5 AND as a solo artist (a cop-out I intend to remedy), than Elvis should have earned a nod in either his birth state, or the state where he made his name...

With that, the bitching and subsequent moaning is at an end. Next time, if the task doesn't kill me, look for MY list of Best Band, Best Solo Artist, and the new 3rd category Honorable Mention by state in my next gargantuan blog post... Google don't fail me now!!