I think of these things but don't post them because, well, this is a blog, not a job. Also I've been working a job and a half because sometimes I like to overachieve. On to the music:

Why doesn't oldies radio play music from the 50s? No bubble gum. Barely a Phil Spector 'little symphony'. No doo-wop. Why does oldies radio play U2?

Why do I know every note of every melismatic run in Whitney Houston's "How Will I Know"?

Does working on non-mainstream music all day feed my addiction to Gwen Stefani and Justin Timberlake, that oasis of slick, easy, danceable pop?

Will Willie Nelson have a Johnny Cash-style comeback?

What if Phil Spector made an album with Michael Jackson?

1) The edits in the radio version of Christina Aguilera's Beautiful are astonishingly clumsy. Why, program directors and record label execs? The album version is only 3:58.

2) Turns out, I am embarassed by my deep-seated love of the band Chicago. Peter, Bjorn and John comes on the radio, and I'll slowly cruise down crowded streets with the windows down, whistling along. But scan to "Hard Habit To Break," (a Billboard #3 hit in 1984!) and, oh yes, I will turn it up and listen, but I'll roll up the windows and do it incognito. Check out Peter Cetera double exposed, elementary school picture-style, in the video.

3) Speaking of hearing Peter, Bjorn and John on the radio, what I love about this song is how it sounds like a mix with half the tracks muted. We will hear many more versions of "Young Folks."

For weeks, I have been unimpressed by every new song I've heard. Uninspired arrangements, soulless, digi-tweaked performances, asinine lyrics, a waste of sound waves... And then, one morning, I checked out VH1's Top 20 Countdown. Which song snapped me out of my music funk? Believe me, I was surprised too.

Before He Cheats, a perfect pop/country nugget performed by Carrie Underwood, green-screened in the appropriately dramatic video, with broken glass and debris whipping behind her.

After one listen, I knew every note of the melody and every word. That, my friends, is catchy. Slickness and all. Well done, Josh Kear and Chris Tompkins. This song is a bulls-eye.