Mary J. Blige Is Mary J. Blige

So here comes a waste of time.

For being such a huge market, there are few choices for music in the greater Los Angeles area. As it is, a single station frequently represents an entire programming sensibility. If you want to hear "Top 40," KIIS is your option. If you want to hear the crap-pile genre known as "Adult Contemporary" you could listen to Star. Even if two or more stations play some of the same songs, the stations will have a different approach to how and why these same songs might be played. You might hear the same No Doubt song on KROQ, Star, KIIS, and KOST, but then what follows would be a different song that broadens the picture of what kind of station you are listening to.

You could also hear the same band, but different songs on different stations. You would more likely hear Don't Speak on KOST or Star but another No Doubt song on KROQ and then yet another on KIIS. I guess you could hear Trapped in a Box on Indie, but this isn't about the same artists, it's about the songs... so back to songs.

At any moment I might hear a song that I find agreeable on any number of stations. But when it comes to a stream of songs- the playlist- I have fewer options. Some stations will play agreeable songs more often, some less often, and some not at all. Then there are stations that will play songs that I could not even describe. There are stations that I know exist, but find nothing in common with me. So as the playlists emerge I have a sense of whether there is a whole in common with me.

Someone might say, I love this station but hate that other station because of the music they play and the sensibility they represent by there playlist. I like Indie for those reasons. I don't like KIIS for those reasons. I might like an individual song, but have to say no to the station because of the whole.

So here's "the thing" with that. Say I represent a playlist. I have something in common with another playlist, and another, and another ad infinitum until we get to a playlist with which I have nothing in common. You and I will have The Clash and Beck in common. You and someone else will have Beck and Madonna in common. Someone else and someone else will have Madonna and Cisqo in common. Someone else and someone else will have Cisqo and The Pussycat Dolls in common. I apparently have nothing in common with someone else who's playing Cisqo and The Pussycat Dolls. If we follow it further to things I can't even describe or know, I have even less in common with another playlist. You could say we have the idea of music in common, but that's not much. That doesn't preclude me or an other from saying somebody else's playlist is garbage. And it certainly doesn't mean that this overarching idea of music can reveal much to me about the particulars of music.

This is just about playlists of course, but say it were about actions. I think A and B are good. You think B and C are good. Someone else says C and D are good. I cannot see that C and D are good even if I know they fit under the larger umbrella of "actions said to be good." It is especially problematic if D is "Kill someone who does A." What a drag.

Now suppose that I do and understand A as A sub 1 and you do understand it as A sub 2. The way I know A makes it sub 1 and similarly the way you know A makes it sub 2. Even if our broader "series" matches from A to F, we are doing different things. I do A because of my love for cats. You do A because you hope your mother will die from it. Yeesh, you're awful.

Sooooo... Mary J. Blige said this: "My God is a God who wants me to have things. He wants me to bling. He wants me to be the hottest thing on the block."

Link via Salon.com. You have to watch a commercial to read it.

I bet you thought I was going to talk about W or Pat Robertson again. Not this time. Mary J. Blige helped out.

I understand the words. I bet we both even pray. We talk about God. But no common playlist here. So what have we learned today?

I really like Indie.

Musical genres are a weird thing.

The same artists that created Trapped In a Box created Don't Speak

Similar actions are in fact very different.

Oh and you're alone. All alone.