It Took Me A While Too

Friday, April 6, ~7:00 PM -- Traveling to a family member's art opening in Leeds, AL.

Valerie: Heh.
Me: Huh?
Valerie: The Pants Store.
Me: Yeah?
Valerie: They're having a tent sale.
Me: What? Oh.... Nice.

Questions From My Wife III: Take Me Out to the Jock Jam

A week ago last Thursday, a group of us went to see the local minor league baseball team take on their major league counterparts at the end of spring training. I learned many things:
1) Baseball is kinda boring if you don't have a beer and/or hot dog.
2) I'm not cool because I don't have a strap on my sunglasses so I can wear them backwards around my neck. Actually, I was probably already not cool because I got my sunglasses from a dollar store.
3) People-watching at stadiums comes second maybe to airports, but it's still pretty good.
4) We've run out of sporting event music.

This directly ties in with the third question from my wife:

Are there still people out there recording jock jams? If so, why do they still play "Are You Ready for This" (alternate choice - "Everybody Dance Now") all the time? Were we in high school at the artistic peak of the jock jame genre?

In high school, due to copius supplies of pep rallies, I believe that our bodies and minds were subjugated to higher quantities of the jock jam. We saw countless little bitchy girls get thrown in the air to songs ranging from "It Takes Two (To Make A Thing Go Right and/or Out Of Sight)" to "Rock and Roll Part 2" (or "Hey, We Beat The Hell Out Of You Cause We're Awesome So Suck It"). So maybe one answer is that we're not around high school gymnasiums as much as we used to be.

But you do have a point. Looking at the track listings for ESPN Presents Jock Jams, Volumes One, Two, Three, Four, and even Five reveals the extremely rigorous process a song must go through to be denoted a jam of jock. But seriously, they were really stretching there on volume 5.... "Ray of Light"? Usher? Actually, I have no idea what makes a song escape Billboard's Top 40 to be a tried and true "jock jam." Are there any hits from the last 5 years that are played with reasonable frequency at professional ballpark? Maybe "Hey Ya", but it's getting really close to that 5-year threshold.

So what's the deal? Are people not recording jock jams anymore? Or are announcers too far out of the loop to play anything modern? My guess is that there's a little bit of both. House music just isn't as fashionable as it was in the early 90s. Current songwriters have abandoned exploring what particular dance steps one must undertake to create the Tootsie Roll. Also, I think all the stadiums just have those 5 discs on shuffle. Why mess with what works?