I've been meaning to write about this for some time, but today just feels like the day to do it. In every week's Cadenza issue of Student Life, there is a musical column called "Head Rush" authored by one Jess Minnen. I use the word "musical" loosely here, because mostly the column is about how high Jess got the previous weekend and which random crappy jam band she saw while in her altered state. Apparently others feel the same way that I do, since every couple of weeks or so she starts off her column with "so-and-so says that all I ever write about are jam bands, which is so not true, man." She then goes on to briefly mention some hip-hop band, then get back to the subject of how great it is to watch the Yonder Mountain String Band while passing joints with her buddies or follow Phish around the midwest, doing 'shrooms with random strangers.

Today, however, Jess strayed from jam bands briefly to discuss this year's WILD artist, Better than Ezra. Like Jess, I am not too enthused about hearing a band that had one hit when I was a freshman in high school (that's 8 years ago for anyone who's counting...good god has it really been that long?), but unlike me, Jess is more upset because they are "a rock band". Apparently, hip-hop acts are "cheaper and more popular".

Now wait a second here, simple supply and demand tells me that, in fact, rock bands must be more popular overall if they are indeed more expensive than hip-hop acts. If not, they wouldn't get anyone to book their shows and they would have to lower their price. And I'm sure that rappers are charging as much as they possibly can to afford their bling-bling lifestyle, I somehow can't see them giving a big discount just for the hell of it.

As for whether hip hop is more popular than rock at WashU, I point you in the direction of Spring WILD 2 years ago, when we had both Eve6, a rock band, and Crazy Town, a band with more hip-hop "flava". If you were around for the show, you would've noticed a mass exodus of people from the quad that directly coincided with the break between Eve6's set and Crazy Town coming on stage. That and the fact that the previous year, we were subjected to Outkast's 45 minute soundcheck and 30 minute "show" which was possibly the worst performance and biggest rip off I have ever seen.

If Jess would put down her doobie for a minute and try and regain some of that long-term memory, she would remember that we just had a hip-hop act last semester. And the semester before (if it hadn't been rain-aborted). And the semester before that.

Before I end this post about music for tonight, I would like to register my annoyance that the song "United States of Whatever", by Liam Lynch, is being played on the radio. It is a minute and a half of Liam talking nonsense interspersed with a shoddily-recorded bass and drum loop. You can watch the video of the song here, but don't say I didn't warn you of its crappiness.