Just some more random Saturday night musings...

Many of the advocates of radio consolidation say it makes it a lot easier to serve certain niches, which is why, for example, you'll see a lot of big cities with a modern-rock station and a classic rock station, both owned by the same company, such as Clear Channel, Cumulus or what have you. You Sirius/XM subscribers know they take this whole niche marketing thing to a whole new level with channels like, say "Outlaw Country" and "Hair Nation." Pretty self-explanatory, right? Well, one of my favorite channels, of course, is the Boneyard (Sirius Ch. 19/XM Ch. 53), which bills itself as playing "hard and heavy classic rock." (Which they do. Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" is playing right now.) They play about 25 years worth of rock on here, from roughly 1970 to about 1995. A sample of the songs I've heard as of late:
Black Sabbath, "Paranoid," 1970
Rush, "Working Man," 1974
Van Halen, "Eruption/You Really Got Me," 1978
Billy Squier, "My Kinda Lover," 1981
Metallica, "For Whom The Bell Tolls," 1984
Guns'n'Roses, "Civil War," 1991

"One of these things is not like the other, one of these things just doesn't belong..."
Billy Squier? Really? Nothing against the Stroke Man, but I just don't see that song fitting in that well on that channel. Or, for that matter, anything else I've heard from him. Put it on the '80s pop station where it belongs. I guess it might fit for the demographic they're aiming for, but still it just seems out of place. Sort of like playing John Michael Montgomery and Collin Raye on the weekend classic country shows some stations do. It might be old music now, but I just don't see that as fitting in with, say, Merle Haggard and Waylon Jennings. Just a minor complaint though, really.
And on another note, I am not the biggest fan of "Tears in Heaven," but I think to dismiss Eric Clapton's work just because of that song would be a huge mistake. He and his various groups put out some really great music, even if some of his solo output was more poppy, like "Forever Man." I had forgotten how good that song was till I heard it the other day...