Surprisingly Progressive

As you all know I have a car now. I drive all over. It’s what I do. And in the car I have a radio (ee ii ee ii O!) so I press the pre-set buttons constantly until music comes. I have:

Rock 101: Always Pink Floyd. I thought I was kidding too, but a scientific survey has revealed that 92% of the time? It’s Pink Floyd. And when it’s not, it’s Queensryche. Ha ha ha. Whoo. I slay me.
CFOX: The FOX ROCKS! Except when it plays too much Nickelback. Sometimes I hear a Rage Against the Machine song there. That’s nice.
The Beat: More. Justin. Timberlake.
Z95.3: I don’t even know – are they still Vancouver’s New Music? More. Justin. Timberlake.
CBC AM: Is it Priya Ramu? Is she scorning someone? I sure hope so!
CBC FM: I use this one to put Trombone to sleep. Only failed once and then I put the radio on Rock 101. Ah, Comfortably Numb. How I have missed you – oh wait, no.
(I realize that the CBC has undergone some radical changes and I have not yet heard any of them. I hope they include firing Grant Lawerence. Dude picks my ass.)
CBC French: World beats!
CITR: UBC radio. Garsh them kids is young!
Co-op: Happy communist manifesti to you!
JACK FM: Yes, usually I end up here. Because GLASS TIGER ROCKS, that’s why, it ROCKS and it will never stop ROCKING.

Yesterday I was toodling along and suddenly I actually tuned in the song that was playing on one of the pop stations. It had one of those “oom-chucka-oom-chucka-oom-chucka” beats that made me think it was probably a dance remix. The woman was singing,

Don’t call me baby
You got some nerve, and baby that’ll never do
You know I don’t belong to you
It’s time you knew I’m not your baby
I belong to me, so
Don’t call me baby

and I thought: hold up. That’s a great deal more ballsy than I’d expect from a dance remix. I mean, here I’ve been hearing Fergie go on about her London Bridge and whatnot (my new theory is she wears British underwear) so my standards are not so high, but I don’t tend to hear so much “I don’t belong to you” as a message in pop music. Quite the opposite actually. It made me smile.

Then I looked it up and it’s some band I’ve never heard of from 1999. Obviously I have not been clubbing lately.

Incidentally, Trombone loves that new Fergie song. A few times in the car I have heard him chortle from the back seat when he hears Ludacris do his funny voices in “Glamorous.” I have determined that Today’s New Music is actually for little kids. It’s boppy, it’s got guys with funny voices and it teaches you how to spell. Obviously it’s for kids.