IVP - Strangely Dim - Chicago on Shuffle

Chicago on Shuffle

by David A. Zimmerman

Chicago radio stations across the spectrum have been scared silly lately by iPods, Podcasts and file-sharing. All of a sudden, it seems, you can hear any song you can think of on any station you have or have not assigned a preset to.

Two new stations have asserted themselves. Jack FM ("Playing what we want") has taken the place of Oldies 104.3, so that ironically now the station that plays 50s and 60s music is exclusively online, while the station that plays every CD single you've ever frantically shoved under your bed before your music snob friends arrived for dinner is right there on your car stereo. Meanwhile Nine FM ("We play anything--anywhere") is making a play for the big time with a similarly eclectic mix.

These stations are radio's response to the phenomenon of the iPod shuffle, wherein any song in your library might be next in the queue. Radio becomes like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're going to get.

More fixed-format stations are making their own claims in this new broadcast era. My favorite, WXRT, is changing the ending to well-known movie quotes to get across the idea of mixing things up--like they always have: "Go ahead, make . . . me a peanut-butter sandwich." Q-101 ("Everything alternative--now on shuffle") is probably the most bald-faced iPod poseur, but hey, everybody's doing it.

I would be remiss if I didn't note that Chicago was shuffling while iPods were still a glimmer in their inventor's eye. In 1985 the Chicago Bears kicked it old-school with a song and video to celebrate their trip to the Super Bowl: "We're so bad, we know we're good. Blowin' your mind like you knew we would." For the record, I have yet to hear Chicago radio stations include the "Super Bowl Shuffle" in their mix.

My most surreal moment in the new paradigm came as Def Leppard's "Rock of Ages" was followed immediately by Barry White's "You're the First, the Last, My Everything." Now, only the quirkiest among us would be able to draw lines directly from one to the other, and only by sheer act of the will could we declare both those songs as cool, but under a shuffle worldview what makes a radio station cool is not the songs themselves but the act of playing them so randomly.

Out of context you might think I was sitting in church, of course. The quickest connection I could draw was that both songs drew on religious language--"Rock of Ages" is a hymn, and "first and last" evokes the sovereignty of God. But Barry White was singing to his lover of the moment, not to a divinity, which makes his song technically idolatrous. Def Leppard actually was leading its audience in a hymn of sorts, if you look at the lyrics, championing the divinity of rock 'n' roll as only an 80s hair band could. Idolatry on shuffle--now I've heard everything.

I stuck with the station to see what they'd do next and was relieved to hear a song of slightly more contemporary relevance, with a slightly more theologically sound worldview: "Beautiful Day" by U2. Bono wrote the song as a meditation on the biblical book of Job, I'm told, and his lyrics include a poignant line about the promised end of suffering: "After the flood all the colors came out--it was a beautiful day."

The nice thing about a cult of perpetual shuffle is that faith, hope and love are unavoidably in the mix, so after Barry White's girlfriend gives him an STD or Def Leppard's gods of rock turn a deaf ear to their prayers for their new box set, we can trust that these three remain. Till then, on behalf of all radio listeners I implore all you DJs: Shuffle with Care.

***

I think it's pretty funny that Strangely Dim has been hit with a lot of spam comments lately, most of them landing on my earlier post "Spam of the Year." Everyone wants to be noticed, I guess.

Posted by Dave Zimmerman at August 26, 2005 8:47 AM