Great news for music lovers
Challenges to commercial radio overdue
By Todd Leopold
CNN
(CNN) -- In Nick Hornby's book "High Fidelity," the protagonist -- a passionate, music-loving used-record store owner -- compulsively makes top-five lists of songs, of girlfriends, of breakups.
In that spirit, here are my top five complaints about commercial radio:
5. Dominance by faceless and tasteless corporate monoliths.
4. Overly tight, unadventurous playlists.
3. Too many commercials.
2. Disc jockeys who are either too restrained or just plain dumb.
1. Frankly, it stinks.
Which means that a recent article in The New York Times
about the huge gains of the XM and Sirius satellite radio services cheered me no end.
I've always believed that the listening public is a lot more curious than radio stations give them credit for. Sure, Top 40 pioneer Todd Storz may have noticed that people will play the same songs on a jukebox over and over again, but you can't live on a diet of sameness. Not well, anyway.
But -- especially since the brutal segmenting of the music marketplace and the rise of the corporate titans -- that's what we've been force-fed from our commercial music stations. (Keep in mind that, until the late '60s, "Top 40" included everything from Motown to the Beatles to garage bands to Andy Williams to Paul Mauriat and his Orchestra -- and local DJs could foster local hits that might catch on nationally.)
Gone are the days when a station in my city, Atlanta, named WIIN could play "19th Nervous Breakdown" 19 times in a row -- just because -- or Vin Scelsa could let his mind roam free on New York's K-Rock on his show "Idiot's Delight." (Scelsa is now on Fordham University's non-commercial WFUV.)
In the last few years, however, XM and Sirius have gained a following with their diverse, knowledgeable and passionate radio programming -- enough that millions are now paying $12.95 a month for what, as Tom Petty noted in "The Last DJ," you used to be able to get for free.
There's something wrong with that, but I don't blame the satellite services. They're just filling a need that the airwaves -- our allegedly public airwaves, entrusted to the corporate monoliths -- are supposed to provide.
I don't subscribe to either service, but I do have an iPod, and I'd rather listen to Apple's little machine mix up the 4,000-plus songs I've programmed into it than turn on any of the local commercial music stations.
So, I would imagine, would many others.
Maybe commercial radio stations are getting the message, even if they have to co-opt it for their own ends. There's certainly enough good music out there.
Or there's always the mix tape/CD made by a friend, or yourself in your younger days. To get back to the beginning, it's something that author Hornby -- whose love for music pervades his books "High Fidelity," "About a Boy" and "Songbook" -- knows all about.
And this week sees the opening of a Hornby-related film with nothing to do with music, but everything to do with passion: "Fever Pitch." (OK, it's a fairly lame segue, but work with me, people.)
Eye on Entertainment switches the station.
Eye-opener
Adapting a Nick Hornby book for a Hollywood movie is a rather risky proposition. Though his books tap universal emotions, his characters are sometimes quirky and always -- like the author -- British.
 "Fever Pitch" stars Jimmy Fallon and Drew Barrymore. |  |
John Cusack and director Stephen Frears, both of whom obviously shared Hornby's sensibilities, managed to move "High Fidelity" from London to Chicago with little damage done. The Weitz brothers kept "About a Boy" in London and eliminated its contrived Kurt Cobain subplot, also with good results.
But neither film was a blockbuster at the box office.
Now comes "Fever Pitch," based on Hornby's memoir about his longtime love of Arsenal, a British soccer team.
In Hornby's title, "Pitch" refers to a soccer field. In the new movie version, it's a pun on baseball, because now "Fever Pitch" is about a diehard Boston Red Sox fan.
So far, maybe so good. But while Hornby's book tied his passion for Arsenal to a home wrecked by divorce -- and had some cogent things to say about fathers, sons and growing up -- the movie has had a romantic comedy grafted on to it.
Pardon me while I start worrying.
It could have possibilities. The script is by veteran movie comedy writers Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, who have done capable jobs with "Parenthood" and "City Slickers," and it's directed by the Farrelly brothers, who have created some laugh-out-loud moments of their own ("There's Something About Mary"). The stars are Drew Barrymore and Jimmy Fallon.
Moreover, the film's production ended up culminating in that rarest of events, a Red Sox world championship.
Early reviews are mixed. Entertainment Weekly gave it an "A," which is very good news -- but a couple others indicate that the romantic comedy isn't so comic (or romantic), and the baseball is so much background noise. (Say it ain't so!)
If the latter is the case, the movie will have a greater challenge than the Curse of the Bambino -- it will have the curse of the baseball movie, since there are only a handful of fine examples and many, many duds, both artistically and financially.
"Fever Pitch" opens Friday.
On screen
"Sahara," from its ads, seems like some kind of weak Indiana Jones rip-off. But then there's the cast, which includes the always entertaining William H. Macy and the always amusing Steve Zahn. Matthew McConaughey is the star and Penelope Cruz plays the romantic interest. Based on the novel by Clive Cussler. Opens Friday.On the tube
There is nothing new or special on TV this weekend. Feel free to read a book or -- if you do want to watch TV -- watch some good stuff and catch up with "The Alan Partridge Experience," starring Steve Coogan, on BBC America, Saturdays at 11 p.m. Oh, there should be plenty of baseball games on. Or, if spring has arrived where you are, go outside. OK, there's always "Miss USA Fear Factor" on NBC (Monday, 8 p.m. ET). Nothing like watching beautiful women, already misguided by beauty pageants, eat live worms and dead twigs. As if participating in a beauty pageant wasn't demeaning enough.Sound waves
Garbage's new CD, "Bleed Like Me" (Geffen), comes out Tuesday. Mariah Carey's new record, "The Emancipation of Mimi" (Island), comes out Tuesday. If "Mimi" is Carey, one wonders who she's being emancipated from. I'm looking forward to a duet with Chris Gaines.Paging readers
"American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer" (Knopf), Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherman's biography of the physicist who was among the leaders of World War II's Manhattan Project, comes out Sunday.Heather H. Howard's "Chore Whore" (HarperCollins), a novel about being a celebrity personal assistant, comes out Tuesday. "The Devil in Prada on the West Coast," anyone?Video center
Sound the trumpets! Say "Hi, Bob"! The first season of "The Bob Newhart Show" -- the 1970s series in which Newhart played therapist Bob Hartley -- comes out on DVD Tuesday.The fine "Hotel Rwanda," which earned Oscar nominations for stars Don Cheadle and Sophie Okonedo, comes out Tuesday.
