Here's something to ponder: in one year, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" will be as old as "Stairway to Heaven" was when "Smells Like Teen Spirit" came out.
Which means pretty much that Nirvana, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Smashing Pumpkins, and Stone Temple Pilots are now the old people's classic rock that's clogging up the radio and preventing newer stuff from getting heard. Stone Temple Pilots are, I think, analagous to Bad Company--a band that nobody actually likes, but nobody hates actively enough to run screaming to the radio to turn them off. Ideal for commercial radio, actually, since commercial radio exists in order to deliver ears to advertisers, and the dull and inoffensive serve that purpose well. Dull music is actually better than excellent music--because for music to be excellent, it has to really speak to certain people, which means it's going to not speak to other people. Music that one person loves is, I think, far more likely to be offensive than music that somebody doesn't mind.
And yet, I am sick to death of hearing the same "alternative" songs over and over and over again. The dull and inoffensive have, by dint of excessive airplay, become offensive. It's driving me away from radio. (I would continue to listen to satellite radio, but my receivers kept getting stolen.)
Probably the internet is going to kill radio anyway. I kind of hate to see the radio go, but it'll be a small price to pay to never have to hear "Santeria" or "Under the Bridge" again.
