Oh the injustice!

WARNING: The following is another radio music related post. It will undoubtedly contain many slanderous remarks towards what the author considers "crap music" and please note that these are not his opinion, they are FACT! If you disagree with the author you may argue, but you will only be smacked down by his righteous fury, his vendetta against self-important asses who think they are rock gods when they are nothing more than rock amoebae, if that. It is the author's intention to cause offence to some parties, and any self-harm inflicted as a result of wrathful outbursts initiated by the contents of this post (such as banging one's head against blunt objects) should be attributed to one's own stupidity- and not the author's comments. You have been warned.

POST-WARNING: Just kidding, but you should still be warned.

I was randomly browsing the radio channels the other day on the way to work (it's still Subway, and if you thought I was no longer working there...it's a bit of a long story, and not the focus of this post) and I heard some murmurings of a Battle of the Bands, of sorts (it's actually some "Music Legend" thing), on Triple M. Intrigued, I came home to look up this ever entertaining event, expecting some sort of satisfaction that some of my favourite bands would have soundly beaten some lesser, albeit often equally popular, bands. To my dismay...the truth was far from what I imagined.

Not having listened to much radio recently, I looked up the battle grid on the internet (http://www.mmmelb.com.au/promo/smackdown/battlegrid.pdf). What I found was most disturbing. For some incomprehensible reason, the draw was TOTALLY BULLSHIT.

Okay, if they did it out of a hat fine. But this draw did not look random. It looked like the work of some maniacal monkey with a penchant for eating kittens.

Here are some examples (taken from the first round) of what I'm talking about:

• Pearl Jam vs. Bob Marley
• Led Zeppelin vs. Eric Clapton
• AC/DC vs. The Beatles
• Pink Floyd vs. Nirvana

This is severely reducing their talent pool and therefore the validity of this contest. How could they pit such greats against each other? Each of these musicians have contributed something great to the world of music (AC/DC may be arguable...but they were still a good band). I mean COME ON! Even if these draws came up at random, at least do it again or make some changes. It's not as if anyone's auditing the draw process like in the tennis or the soccer, but even in those competitions there are guidelines so all the best players/teams don't end up in the same half of the draw. This will ensure at least some decent contests all throughout the competition.

There's also the problem of exposure. While the classics from greats such as Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Queen etc. don't get much time on the air because of their age, the new poppy bands (such as Greenday and the oh so despicable Nickelback- no offence to the retards who like them- just kidding, you guys are okay, just your taste in music...please redeem yourselves by listening to something decent) get lots of time on the radio because they have new material out or they're doing a tour in Australia or something like that. So, many of the listeners who vote in these battles haven't heard enough material by all the bands in question, leading to bias or just plain old ignorance (example said by a workmate: "Who's Pink Floyd?", "Money- isn't that an ABBA song?").

There are also some glaring omissions. Where are the other greats such as Jimi Hendrix and Van Halen? I'll admit perhaps Jeff Beck, Jeff Buckley, The Smiths and The Flaming Lips are a bit alternative for the Triple M of now, but if they wanted popular, what about Foo Fighters or The Killers?

Eh, I wanted to say more, but I've had enough of typing for now. Also, I've lost my ranting energy; this post is long enough as it is.