Tuesday, July 20, 2010

An Open Letter to Country Music Singers

Dearest Country Music Singers,
Ordinarily, I would not be writing to you. However, my co-workers are unaware of the meaning of the phrase "appropriate volume", and so I have been bombarded with your songs for months now. After all of this, I feel that there is something that you should know:

I already know the name of the country in which I live. I do not need to be reminded.

Imagine this: a single country song may use the word "America" twice per chorus. That chorus is repeated four or five times per song. Let's go with four. That song is repeated on the radio station every three hours (because I guess they lost their other tapes?). In a given workweek I am forced to hear your song 13 times. That's 106 occurrences of the word "America" from one song per week. Now, there are four or five different songs with this same pattern.

Let me repeat that, since repetition doesn't seem to annoy you people like it does the rest of us: four or five different songs from the same playlist all with the same pattern. 424-530 occurrences of the word per week! Just from the radio!

It's like you have nationalistic Tourette's. Yes "nationalistic", not "patriotic". Using the name of your country unnecessarily to make a quick buck in your niche market wouldn't be too patriotic, now, would it?

Have a nice day.
-SCM