Heard this commercial on the radio this morning, for a local “specialty” store:
Come in for our 4/20 sale and get great deals on pipes and water tubes and lots of other smoking accessories… Don’t get ripped off, just get ripped.
Smoking accessories are for legal tobacco use only.
Who do they think they’re kidding? “Get ripped” with legal tobacco? Right.
Nice try, geniuses. “We don’t sell drug paraphernalia here, no sirrrrreee. Legal stuff only. Ignore the smell.”
Sigh.
Today on the road, I happened to be listening to the radio when the DJ came on to do his spiel. He introduced the song that was about to play as “brand new music” — and then proceeded to play “Knights of Cydonia,” a song that was “brand new” in July of 2006. July. July of last year.
After that song, he introduced another song, this time “Pain” by Three Days Grace. Guess what? He said that song was “brand new” too. “New music now from Three Days Grace, this is ‘Pain.’” That album came out in June of 2006.
Now, at what point do songs cease to be labeled as “brand new” by radio disc jockeys? I would think that a song over six months old should cease to qualify as “new” material, no? Am I missing some law of radio, that says you can tell your listeners that songs are new even if they’ve been out for a year or more?