Chris Tunes in: A Diary of the Latest Offerings on 101.1 The River from 4-4:30 PM

4:01 PM -- With Arms Wide Open, Creed

Why hasn't Creed gone away yet? And worse, why have they brought all of their friends? You just can't turn on the radio anymore without hearing one of a dozen cookie-cutter "feaux-religious" bands like Creed, Lifehouse, or The Calling. Their style is rock, but their lyrics and name just taunt you: "nah nah nah nah nah, we're sneaking Christian messages into mainstream radio, and there's nothing you can do about it". I consider myself Christian, but that doesn't mean that I need to convert everyone around me through songs, action figures, or those funny shows on TV where the man with a big microphone massages the head of "deaf and dumb" heathens in some foreign county and knocks them to the ground, only to proclaim them "healed" because he can mimic their speech and pretend that they can hear him. And then there is Veggie Tales, teaching children to choose their religious beliefs based on talking vegetables that they see on television. [shudder]

4:06 PM -- The Middle, Jimmy Eat World

This song was just referred to as "the new one from Jimmy Eat World", despite the fact that the album it comes from came out last summer. It is a great song, it's just unfortunate that because it's on the radio all the indier-than-though folks decry Jimmy Eat World as sellouts. They wrote a catchy song that people like, there are a lot worse things on the radio nowadays, so quit your bitchin'.

4:09 PM -- Hook, Blues Traveler

I liked this song back when I was a sophomore in high school, despite the fact that John Popper now comprises of his own zip code and that harmonica just gets really annoying after awhile.

4:15 PM -- Something by Michelle Branch

There's not much to say about Michelle Branch, she kind of sounds like every other female artist on the radio who plays the exact same style of music.

4:18 PM -- Be Like That, 3 Doors Down

This song falls under the category of "songs by that band that sounds like every other band". Also in this group are Wish You Were Here by Incubus and anything by Nickelback. Here is what the typical fan of 3 Doors Down has to say about the album this song comes from: "When I heard Kryptonite on the radio for the first time, I cranked the volume way up on my stereo and just thought about what an awesome song it was. After I listened parts of the other songs on the CD, I sort of rejected those tracks and only listened to track #1, Kryptonite." (taken from an actual website)

4:21 PM -- Smooth, Slimmed-Down Matchbox 20 Guy and Temporarily-Resurrected Carlos Santana

This song was wildly popular because it feature not one but two comebacks! Nobody who was born after 1970 even knew who Carlos Santana was, and after their hit album of songs that all sounded the same, the Matchbox 20 singer was in a Fat Farm somewhere trying to get down to a size where he could fit his arms around his guitar again. Since this song came out, Matchbox 20 came out with yet another album of songs that sound the same and Carlos Santana has returned to wherever he was circa mid-70's through 1999, biding his time until this generation of radio listeners forget about him and he can come out with another comeback album.

4:25 PM -- Eternal Commercial Break

During which I give thanks that I did not hear any of the following: Uncle Kracker's one and only hit song (Follow Me), Drops of Jupiter by Train, The baby-talk song from Moulin Rouge, or anything by any of these bands: Nickelback, System of a Down, Hatebreed.

UPDATE!

The song which played immediately after the break was, of course, How You Remind me by none other than Nickelback. Now I remember why I don't listen to the radio.