Song Of The Day 9/12/2014: Middle Class Rut - "USA"

Let's Go Sacramento!: I don't listen to radio much anymore. Not even our public radio station. Though I'd love to be back on the air somewhere someday, I only really listen to WFMU, and even then it's podcasts of past shows, rarely live. My music discovery model got whack-a-moled once I started keeping track of the albums I listen to. Instead of wading through a predictable radio rotation I monitor some new release guides, the usual online music resources and some unusual ones. Then I find these albums on Spotify and throw 'em on this very long list. When I know I'm going to have 45 minutes of free ear time I pick from that list and play. Then I write the album down, like on a diary. That's the kind of sorcery we're dealing with.

Despite having no genre limits, I do avoid albums I don't think I'll like. This is how I've made it through five years having only heard one-half of a Justin Bieber song. But conversely, since I only listen to albums I think there's a chance I'll like, and since I'm usually right, or at least not wrong, I may have a sunnier disposition towards current music than many other people my age or younger. I feel like I'm wearing tacky rainbow suspenders.

What was I talking about?

Oh, yeah, the radio. So I don't listen to it, and haven't listened intently to any commercial music station in years, including what is charmingly called "mainstream alternative." I used to keep up with the charts because that was part of my job, so I knew in 2010 that Middle Class Rut were getting a lot of airplay with their song "New Low." They were one of the few (sorry for this again) "mainstream alternative" bands with a hit on modern rock radio that I really liked. And they're from Sacramento, which makes me doubly proud, because I spent one year getting spit on for liking punk when I was a teenager and it's nice to see the River City come around. Remind me someday to show you guys these crazy new microwave ovens everyone's swooning over.