Remember what it was like to listen to the radio? It’s crazy to think that there will (probably very soon) come a time when the closest thing we have to the radio are Spotify Podcasts. Unlike a certain sect of baby boomers and hipsters, I don’t really see this is as particularly tragic. Progress happens, and much of the time it is good. No use fearing change when it’s inevitable, and really, who actually prefers waiting between thousands of commercials to hear one song play, before the next rush of commercials? I personally love my playlists.
Total Heat, the new solo project by Girlpool’s Ross Chait, creates a mournful, nostalgic single in “On the FM”, that still somehow manages to sound positive, and fun. It’s possible to look fondly on the past without becoming maudlin about it and that is the spirit in which Total Heat builds this single.
According to Chait, the single is about a musician who has careened into obsolescence.
On the FM was the first song I wrote in the Total Heat catalogue and it’s meant to be a slightly tongue-in-cheek but mostly genuine testament to the cathartic and healing power of music. It addresses a feeling that’s been a theme throughout my life, the feeling of being freed from crippling alienation and out of placeness through great songs and loud, joyful sounds. There’s also a character element, as I was writing from the perspective of an imaginary up and coming pop star addressing both their own audience of outsiders in addition to another made up figure. This other figure I imagine to be a pop star who’s career has long been irrelevant and uninspired, but despite this stays on the road and plays to audiences that shrink and shrink. In my career as a touring musician, I’ve observed this phenomenon and it’s something I find prevalent, but at the same time endearing and sometimes even funny. It’s also something my friend Randy Newman (for the record, I consider Randy still to be one of the most profound and inspiring songwriters of all time), who I worked for from 2013-2016, would address in his music and in our conversations, so I have to give him credit for some of the lyrical inspiration. All in all it’s a testament to the unifying power of music, which I believe in more than anything in the world.
Is it better to have found fame and lost it, than never to have found fame at all? Or is the joy in the playing of the music itself, no matter how many people hear it? There is joy in “On the FM”. I wonder how many people will listen to the single? I wonder if it matters?