2002.10.20

My problem with MuchLoud

I have a Rogers digital cable box. I’ve enjoyed three free previews of digital channels, and I also pay money to subscribe to Pridevision, for reasons that seem less and less sustainable with each passing week.

All day, whilst trying to motivate myself, I will run various television stations in the background. (Literally: It’s behind me. I had my smaller TV in my visual field for two years, and it worsened my autism-like tendencies. My larger TV is now straight behind me. If something jogs my interest, I turn around and look. I can also enact a quasi-PVR effect by taping everything I watch, since both VCRs are downstream of the digital box, which feeds separately to the television; in principle I never need to miss anything.)

A television station I listen to most days is MuchLoud, the specialty service allegedly “dedicated to the world of alternative, hard rock, metal, classic metal and punk.”

First of all, playing “alternative” puts the station squarely in competition with EdgeTV, which does nothing else and sits one channel stop away from MuchLoud. In fact, I could name a dozen videos both stations play far too often. And just today, both stations began playing “No One Knows” by redhead-fronted Queens of the Stone Age within three seconds of each other!

I’ve been so disappointed by and frustrated with MuchLoud that, while working, I’ve taken to typing in the names of videos played. If this seems like excess attention (“Get a life, Joe!”), it isn’t; it takes me five seconds at my usual typing speed of 90 words per minute.

I’ll show you the data in a second. How about some observations first?

1. MuchLoud is capable of running the same video twice in a row. On two occasions during the week of October 9, “She Hates Me” by Puddle of Mudd – the MuchLoud standard-bearer, and a grating miasma that besmirches even the checkered history of the novelty song – ran twice in a row. I repeat: Twice in one week the station played the same song twice in succession. (See note below.) MuchLoud should really be renamed MuddLoud, or Puddle of Much.
2. The station is operated entirely electronically; a computerized system plays videos, what few commercials there are, and other programming from a server with little or no human intervention. But a human being programs the videos, and he is a former on-air personality who’s been bumped up the ladder in recent years. (He affected a joker persona on MuchMusic, but I never bought it. The current MuchLoud programmer harkened to the salad days of early Much, when true music fans ran the station; he’s the closest thing we’ve got to a latter-day Christopher Ward.)
3. The electronic system is, at times, FUBAR. At commercial breaks, it’s supposed to line up the titles of the next three artists, but:
   • on one occasion it ran the same word in every field on the screen (that word was “Millencolin”), and furthermore, the only font used is the scourge itself, Arial;
   • it doesn’t compensate when the same artiste runs twice (“twofers” are occasionally welcome); and
   • it continues to advertise programs within those selfsame programs (as I write this during a Godsmack special, it has twice advertised that Godsmack special).

But now the shocking conclusion. MuchLoud does not understand itself. MuchLoud is, in effect, the closest televisual equivalent to a fan Web site yet encountered, where microdetailed interests can be pursued to maniacal degrees. The station can air every single rock, punk, ska, metal, and hardcore video in the library. That’s what we pay for. Back catalogue – all of it, all day, with repeats infrequent at best.

What we actually get is Puddle of Mudd twice in a row twice, itself a video that can be seen just as often on the competing station – a single tick of the remote control upward – whose actual brief is to air videos of that genre.

Rogers charges $2.49 a month for MuchLoud. (I’m getting it for free for the time being.) It appeals to hardcore obsessifs – and, due to the subject matter and its status as a digital pay service, to older male obsessifs with disposable income. We are not centrally interested in arriviste mook-rock bands or lite alternarock. One of the station’s own interstitials proclaims “I will not listen to boy bands,” but Puddle of Mudd, Linkin Park, Good Charlotte, a Simple Plan, POD, and their ilk are boy bands; they are not “loud.” (MuchLoud’s history in running girl rockeuses is actually much worse. I hardly think Live on Release, Bif Naked, and Tuuli are sufficient or even relevant.)

If I seem to be telling experienced “professionals” how to do their jobs, well, it’s hardly the first time, and besides, that approach seems to work pretty well in the field of dramaturgy, where the dramaturge explicates a work to its own author. MuchLoud has errantly duplicated the failings of MuchMusic – an emphasis on shallow novelty acts; a craven absence of taste and gravitas in addressing the full history of music video; pandering to the presumed tastes of an imagined under-20-year-old majority audience – rather than pursuing what its own name demands it be.

It’s real simple: I want to see every single true hard-rock video in the collection, played randomly and interspersed with every punk-rock video. The entire Epitaph catalogue should be manifest, but it says a lot about the station that the only Bad Religion videos I’ve ever seen are the latest two, “Sorrow” and “Broken.”

(I name rock and punk merely as examples. All genres that MuchLoud’s Web site lists are fair game save for “alternative.” Any true rock fan could list 30 bands and hundreds of videos that could readily be played. (You can find that many in the music columns I wrote starting ten years ago!)

I am, moreover, willing to give up the chance to see “Bohemian Like You” by the Dandy Warhols – viewed exactly twice, both times after midnight, and apparently never again to be seen – for the sake of holding MuchLoud to its brief.)

“I will not listen to boy bands” seems like a viable manifesto for MuchLoud because what we want to watch is essentially impossible now that MuchMusic has become a full-on Britney Spears delivery vehicle. (Today is in fact Britney Day on Much.) Props to George, but Loud and The Punk Show not only do not cut it, they’re a measly 90 minutes a week and have an irksome tendency to play either greatest hits (“Rock the Casbah”) or videos already overexposed on MuchLoud.

And in fact, a preponderance of MuchLoud’s playlist can already be seen on MuchMusic. That is the problem: MuchLoud’s videos are so pansy-arse (I should know, having one) that they play just as well on MuchMusic.

It’s nearly impossible to find credible critiques of MuchMusic in the press. Whenever one of them pops up, the strongest defence MuchMusic can muster for its wholesale degradation into a lifestyle station for teenage girls is “We can’t be all things to all people.” While laughable on its face, MuchLoud has no recourse to that defence, because CHUM wants to collect a vig on the $30 a year viewers pay to be one or two things all the time to a tribe of viewers who want nothing else. Yet it fails miserably at doing those one or two things really well.

How to fix it?

1. Don’t play any rock videos that also appear on MuchMusic any more often than they appear there.
2. Get rid of the entire concept of high rotation. It’s antithetical to a specialty station for obsessifs and is, moreover, already enacted by EdgeTV. If the Canadian broadcasting system is deemed insufficiently healthy to permit viewers a choice in general-interest music-video stations between MuchMusic and something else, then it also isn’t healthy enough to support dueling alternarock stations with near-identical playlists, either. Yet again, MuchLoud does not understand its own brief.
3. Aggressively mine the archive – and I don’t mean digging up the one or two actual Led Zeppelin videos sitting in the library.
4. Program for yourself, not for a demographic. For, in the words of that same MuchLoud interstitial, “[we] are not a demographic and [we] are not Gen X.”

What I don’t want to hear at this point is some namby-pamby self-justification. MuchLoud, you are busted.

The data

• First, chronological listings through individual sample periods.
• Next, an alphabetical list.

(Or skip to conclusions.)

Chronologically

2002.10.06 21:46

1. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” no captions, uncensored
2. Something Canadian with shit captions
3. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” captions, censored
4. Metallica, “Unforgiven.” long version
5. AC/DC, “Highway to Hell”
6. Guns & Roses, “Estranged”
7. Pepper Sands, “Win Big, Lose More”
8. Rammstein, »Sonne«

2002.10.09 21:20

1. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” captions, censored
2. DOA, “We’re Drivin’ to Hell & Back”
3. Rammstein, »Sonne«
4. Korn, “Shoots & Ladders”
5. Queens of the Stone Age, “No One Knows”
6. Snapcase, “Coagulate”
7. GNR, “November Rain”
8. [Punk Show]
9. Theory of a Deadman, “Nothing Could Come Between Us”
10. Korn, “No Place to Hide”
11. Mass Undergoe, “Lost Vacancy”
12. Korn, “Adidas”
13. Good Charlotte, “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”
14. Limp Bizkit, “My Way”
15. Andrew W.K., “We Want Fun” (second time today)
16. Tea Party, “Save Me”
17. [Break in record-keeping]
18. Disturbed, “Down with the Sickness”
19. Mighty Mighty Bosstons, “You Gotta Go!”
20. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” no captions, uncensored
21. Live on Release, “Emotional Griptape”
22. Incubus, “Pardon Me”
23. Danko Jones, “Lovercall” (second time today)
24. Treble Charger, “Brand-New Low”
25. POD, “Satellite” (easily second time today)
26. Sevendust, “Praise” (second time today)

2002.10.10 22:35

1. Judas Priest, “Turbo Lover”
2. Danko Jones, “Lovercall”
3. Soulfly, “Seek & Strike”
4. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” no captions, uncensored
5. Live on Release, “Emotional Griptape”
6. Limp Bizkit, “Rearranged”
7. POD, “Satellite”
8. Econoline Crush, “Sparkle and Shine”
9. Subb, “Twenty-One”
10. Rage Against the Machine, “Sleep Now in the Fire”
11. American Hi-Fi, “Flavour of the Week”
12. System of a Down, “Aerials”
13. Matthew Good, “Everything Is Automatic”
14. Not By Choice, “Standing All Alone”
15. Static-X, “I’m with Stupid”
16. Korn, “Thoughtless”
17. Beatsteaks, “Let Me In”
18. Rage Against the Machine, “Guerrilla Radio”
19. Pepper Sands, “Win Big, Lose More”
20. Weezer, “Buddy Holly”
21. Simple Plan, “I’d Do Anything”
22. Nickelback, “Leader of Men”
23. Hoobastank, “Running Away”

2002.10.11 12:00

1. Sevendust, “Angel’s Son”
2. 30 Seconds to Mars, “Capricorn”
3. Danko Jones, “Bounce”
4. Nickelback, “Never Again”
5. Monster Magnet, “Space Lord”
6. Treble Charger, “Hundred Million”
7. Rocket Science, “Stop”
8. Offspring, “Original Prankster”
9. Earshot, “Not Afraid”
10. Metallica, “King Nothing”
11. Filter, “Where Do We Go from Here?”
12. Offspring, “The Kids Aren’t Al[l ]Right”
13. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “By the Way”
14. Danko Jones, “Cadillac”
15. White Stripes, “Dead Leaves & the Dirty Ground”
16. Metallica, “I Disappear”
17. Bif Naked, “Tango Shoes”
18. Mass Undergoe, “Lost Vacancy”
19. Our Lady Peace, “In Repair”
20. Our Lady Peace, “Innocent”
21. Skid Row, “Monkey Business”
22. Vines, “Outtatheway”

2002.10.11 18:45

1. Stone Temple Pilots, Something or other
2. Iggy Pop, “Home”,
3. Metallica, “No Leaf Clover”
4. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” captions, censored
5. Breach of Trust, “Disease”
6. Snapcase, “Coagulate”
7. Distillers, “Young Crazed Peeling”

2002.10.11 19:45

1. Theory of a Deadman, “Nothing Could Come Between Us”
2. Andrew W.K., “We Want Fun”
3. Judas Priest, “Another Thing Coming”
4. DOA & Bif Naked, “All Across the USA”
5. Linkin Park, “Points of Authority”
6. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Knock Me Down”
7. Goldfinger, “Spokesman”
8. Disturbed, “Prayer”
9. Alice in Chains, “Man in the Box”
10. Hatebreed, “I Will Be Heard”
11. Live on Release, “Emotional Griptape”
12. Godsmack, “Greed”
13. Distillers, “City of Angels”
14. Danko Jones, “Lovercall”
15. Guttermouth, “She’s Got the Look”
16. Incubus, “Warning”
17. Econoline Crush, “Home”
18. System of a Down, “Aerials”
19. POD, “Satellite”
20. Alice in Chains, “Angry Chair”

2002.10.12 06:46

1. Nine Inch Nails, “Starsuckers, Inc.”
2. Sectorseven, “Stand Alone”
3. Soulfly, “Seek & Strike”
4. Bif Naked, “I Love Myself Today”
5. Filter, “Where Do We Go from Here?”
6. Korn, “Here to Stay”
7. Soundgarden, “Black Hole Sun”
8. Beatsteaks, “Let Me In”
9. White Stripes, “Dead Leaves & the Dirty Ground”
10. Nickelback, “Old Enough”
11. Grimskunk, “Seventh Wave”
12. Our Lady Peace, “Innocent”
13. Guns & Roses, “Garden of Eden”

2002.10.12 14:04

1. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” captions, censored
2. Blink-182, “Anthem Part 2”
3. Vines, “Get Free”
4. Nickelback, "Too Bad"
5. Live on Release, "Get With It"
6. Sevendust, “Waffle”
7. Queens of the Stone Age, “No One Knows”
8. Korn, “Somebody Someone”
9. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Higher Ground”
10. Taproot, “Poem”
11. Offspring, “She’s Got Issues”
12. Goldfinger, “Spokesman”
13. Korn, “Freak on a Leash”
14. Theory of a Deadman, “Nothing Could Come Between Us”
15. Andrew W.K., “We Want Fun”
16. Stone Temple Pilots, “Lady Picture Show”
17. Linkin Park, “Points of Authority”
18. Metallica, “Fuel”
19. Strokes, “Someday”
20. Finger Eleven, “Above”
21. No Use for a Name, “Dumb Reminders”
22. Static-X, “This Is Not”
23. Disturbed, “Prayer”
24. Cult, “Rise”
25. Papa Roach, “Time and Time Again”

Notes:

• I regularized spellings.
• Most videos derive from the late 1990s or early Aughties and there are not all that many distinct titles.
• “She Hates Me” by Puddle of Mudd is in fact seen in two versions, one with captions and no use of the word “fuckin’,” a second without captions and with such usage.
• These samples dramatically understate the repetitiveness of MuchLoud. You cannot imagine the psychological harm caused by knowing that “Satellite” or, of course, “She Hates Me” ran twice that afternoon and twice more the same evening.

Alphabetically

1. AC/DC, “Highway to Hell”
2. Alice in Chains, “Angry Chair”
3. Alice in Chains, “Man in the Box”
4. American Hi-Fi, “Flavour of the Week”
5. Andrew W.K., “We Want Fun”
6. Andrew W.K., “We Want Fun”
7. Andrew W.K., “We Want Fun”
8. Beatsteaks, “Let Me In”
9. Beatsteaks, “Let Me In”
10. Bif Naked, “I Love Myself Today”
11. Bif Naked, “Tango Shoes”
12. Blink-182, “Anthem Part 2”
13. Breach of Trust, “Disease”
14. Cult, “Rise”
15. Danko Jones, “Bounce”
16. Danko Jones, “Cadillac”
17. Danko Jones, “Lovercall”
18. Danko Jones, “Lovercall”
19. Danko Jones, “Lovercall”
20. Distillers, “City of Angels”
21. Distillers, “Young Crazed Peeling”
22. Disturbed, “Down with the Sickness”
23. Disturbed, “Prayer”
24. Disturbed, “Prayer”
25. DOA & Bif Naked, “All Across the USA”
26. DOA, “We’re Drivin’ to Hell & Back”
27. Earshot, “Not Afraid”
28. Econoline Crush, “Home”
29. Econoline Crush, “Sparkle and Shine”
30. Filter, “Where Do We Go from Here?”
31. Filter, “Where Do We Go from Here?”
32. Finger Eleven, “Above”
33. GNR, “November Rain”
34. Godsmack, “Greed”
35. Goldfinger, “Spokesman”
36. Goldfinger, “Spokesman”
37. Good Charlotte, “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous”
38. Grimskunk, “Seventh Wave”
39. Guns & Roses, “Estranged”
40. Guns & Roses, “Garden of Eden”
41. Guttermouth, “She’s Got the Look”
42. Hatebreed, “I Will Be Heard”
43. Hoobastank, “Running Away”
44. Iggy Pop, “Home”,
45. Incubus, “Pardon Me”
46. Incubus, “Warning”
47. Judas Priest, “Another Thing Coming”
48. Judas Priest, “Turbo Lover”
49. Korn, “Adidas”
50. Korn, “Freak on a Leash”
51. Korn, “Here to Stay”
52. Korn, “No Place to Hide”
53. Korn, “Shoots & Ladders”
54. Korn, “Somebody Someone”
55. Korn, “Thoughtless”
56. Limp Bizkit, “My Way”
57. Limp Bizkit, “Rearranged”
58. Linkin Park, “Points of Authority”
59. Linkin Park, “Points of Authority”
60. Live on Release, "Get With It"
61. Live on Release, “Emotional Griptape”
62. Live on Release, “Emotional Griptape”
63. Live on Release, “Emotional Griptape”
64. Mass Undergoe, “Lost Vacancy”
65. Mass Undergoe, “Lost Vacancy”
66. Matthew Good, “Everything Is Automatic”
67. Metallica, “Fuel”
68. Metallica, “I Disappear”
69. Metallica, “King Nothing”
70. Metallica, “No Leaf Clover”
71. Metallica, “Unforgiven.” long version
72. Mighty Mighty Bosstons, “You Gotta Go!”
73. Monster Magnet, “Space Lord”
74. [MuchLoud and EdgeTV are both playing Queens of the Stone Age within 5 seconds of each other]
75. Nickelback, “Too Bad”
76. Nickelback, “Leader of Men”
77. Nickelback, “Never Again”
78. Nickelback, “Old Enough”
79. Nine Inch Nails, “Starsuckers, Inc.”
80. No Use for a Name, “Dumb Reminders”
81. Not By Choice, “Standing All Alone”
82. Offspring, “Original Prankster”
83. Offspring, “She’s Got Issues”
84. Offspring, “The Kids Aren’t Al[l ]Right”
85. Our Lady Peace, “In Repair”
86. Our Lady Peace, “Innocent”
87. Our Lady Peace, “Innocent”
88. Papa Roach, “Time and Time Again”
89. Pepper Sands, “Win Big, Lose More”
90. Pepper Sands, “Win Big, Lose More”
91. POD, “Satellite”
92. POD, “Satellite”
93. POD, “Satellite”
94. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” captions, censored
95. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” captions, censored
96. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” captions, censored
97. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” no captions, uncensored
98. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” no captions, uncensored
99. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” captions, censored
100. Puddle of Mudd, “She Hates Me” no captions, uncensored
101. Queens of the Stone Age, “No One Knows”
102. Queens of the Stone Age, “No One Knows”
103. Rage Against the Machine, “Guerrilla Radio”
104. Rage Against the Machine, “Sleep Now in the Fire”
105. Rammstein, »Sonne«
106. Rammstein, »Sonne«
107. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “By the Way”
108. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Higher Ground”
109. Red Hot Chili Peppers, “Knock Me Down”
110. Rocket Science, “Stop”
111. Sectorseven, “Stand Alone”
112. Sevendust, “Angel’s Son”
113. Sevendust, “Praise”
114. Sevendust, “Waffle”
115. Simple Plan, “I’d Do Anything”
116. Skid Row, “Monkey Business”
117. Snapcase, “Coagulate”
118. Snapcase, “Coagulate”
119. Soulfly, “Seek & Strike”
120. Soulfly, “Seek & Strike”
121. Soundgarden, “Black Hole Sun”
122. Static-X, “I’m with Stupid”
123. Static-X, “This Is Not”
124. Stone Temple Pilots, “Lady Picture Show”
125. Strokes, “Someday”
126. Subb, “Twenty-One”
127. System of a Down, “Aerials”
128. System of a Down, “Aerials”
129. Taproot, “Poem”
130. Tea Party, “Save Me”
131. Theory of a Deadman, “Nothing Could Come Between Us”
132. Theory of a Deadman, “Nothing Could Come Between Us”
133. Theory of a Deadman, “Nothing Could Come Between Us”
134. 30 Seconds to Mars, “Capricorn”
135. Treble Charger, “Brand-New Low”
136. Treble Charger, “Hundred Million”
137. Vines, “Get Free”
138. Vines, “Outtatheway”
139. Weezer, “Buddy Holly”
140. White Stripes, “Dead Leaves & the Dirty Ground”
141. White Stripes, “Dead Leaves & the Dirty Ground”

And in summation

How’s that for diversity? Not, right?

Now, I may have uncovered a structural flaw in the MuchLoud approach. Maybe the current MuchLoud programmer should not have to manually program the station. Perhaps true randomization is in order. Even if we stick with having a human being assign the lineup, I don’t buy the counterargument that it takes too long to program a diverse and respectful lineup. The station is cheap to run, and that’s your job.

MuchLoud subscribers are not paying the current MuchLoud programmer to succumb to recency effect, whereby videos recently arrived at MuchMusic, or recently aired there or on MuchLoud, are quickly re-aired. Nor are we ponying up actual money (not yet, in my case, admittedly) in order to suffer the effects of long-term musical memory loss on the part of the programmer.

Yes, any fan of rock video really could be doing a better job. The fact that we’re expected to pay $30 a year for bobbysoxer-calibre “loud” video programming is an insult.

Once my previews are up, I really and truly want to become the only person in Canada who subscribes to both MuchLoud and Pridevision. But can we get at least one of them to the point where it’s worth the money?

MuchLoud, try smarter.

Disclaimer

Mandatory disclaimer for my sensitive friends in THE INDUSTRY: If I so much as look at a Canadian broadcaster’s headquarters building funny I get in shit, so know the following well. I’ve had two very nice meetings with CHUM to discuss captioning and description. I was promised a third, which I have requested. I have, moreover, been invited to help with something else access-related that CHUM is involved in. But meetings and involvement or not, I’m still a viewer, and I wouldn’t care about accessibility at CHUM if I didn’t watch their stations. I don’t want to be driven insane with frustration by MuchLoud programming, as is currently the case.

So nobody have a fat attack, please. Don’t try to hold this discussion against me in any future accessibility discourse, since the two are manifestly unrelated. I’m staying on topic and you should do the same.

If you don’t understand why one posts complaints of these sorts online, you need to understand Weblogs better, which indeed might be a bit late in the day given that MuchMusic runs its own.

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