Dear Canadian Top 40 Radio Stations,

I know you have to fulfill your Canadian Content programming requirements, but for the love of God, you really, really, really have to stop playing Carly Rae Jepsen’s “Bucket”. Anyone who samples children’s nursery rhymes is — well, let’s be honest here, there are no words to describe that degree of musical atrocity. We should be clear that I don’t harbor any particular animosity towards Ms. Jepsen, and I am unfamiliar with the rest of her work, so it’s not like I’m judging her or her music in general — just this one song. It’s awful, even by the standards of contemporary Top 40.

We put up with a lot of bad music these days. We tolerated, for instance, Katy Perry being shoved in our faces and ears even though we all knew how annoying she was. And we’ve all cataloged the four P!nk songs (well, the four categories of P!nk songs, anyway), and we tolerate her continued presence even though her recent material is neither as interesting nor as edgy as it used to be. I’ve gotten over the fact that Kelly Clarkson apparently only had one really good album in her, and what we’re hearing now seems to be some kind of experiment in cultural longevity. (Some of us — like me — are holding out a bit more hope for Kelly.) I am prepared, under the right circumstances, to pretend that Lady Ga Ga is about more than just not wearing pants (or any bottoms, really) and is not suffering from a rare case of retinal hypersensitivity requiring the continual wearing of wrap-around sunglasses.

I can even cope with the fact that Nickelback apparently has “new” music out, though that’s a derived data point, since I can’t actually tell any of their songs apart.

In short, I’m willing to listen to your radio station because it is (a) there and (b) doesn’t generally cost me anything except the occasional micron or two of tooth enamel. But “Bucket” needs to be thrown in a sack, the sack thrown in a river, and the river hurled into space. It’s easily the most irritating thing on the radio right now, and it’s twice as irritating because it gets stuck in your head, you start humming it at the wrong time, and then you’re angry all over again. The only fun part is how you can annoy other people with it, but that’s not really the point of music, is it? So please, I’m asking you as nicely as I know how: stop playing this song. I’ll let you replace it with some new Britney abomination, and things will be OK. Promise.

Lots of love,
-m.

P.S.: If you wanted to send that Karl Wolf guy’s Toto cover off into deep space too, that’d be cool with me. One or the other — it doesn’t really matter. OK? Please? Thanks.