47. How 2B Confused

Installment #47 of How 2B Confused aired in March, 2023 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

How 2B Confused is Randophonic’s longest, most random and least concise countdown yet, tracking as it does the 1499 Records We All Really Need To Hear Before The Eschaton Immenatizes.

Whatever that means.

What it means is we’ll be at it until either the end of time, or we hit #1, whichever happens first (assuming both don’t happen in simultaneous singularity).

How 2B Confused #47, mixcloud stream.

A few highlights.

46. How 2B Confused

Installment #46 of How 2B Confused aired in March, 2023 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

How 2B Confused is Randophonic’s longest, most random and least concise countdown yet, tracking as it does the 1499 Records We All Really Need To Hear Before The Eschaton Immenatizes.

Whatever that means.

What it means is we’ll be at it until either the end of time, or we hit #1, whichever happens first (assuming both don’t happen in simultaneous singularity).

How 2B Confused #46 download link (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9), mixcloud stream.

A few highlights.

45. How 2B Confused

Installment #45 of How 2B Confused aired in early March, 2023 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

How 2B Confused is Randophonic’s longest, most random and least concise countdown yet, tracking as it does the 1499 Records We All Really Need To Hear Before The Eschaton Immenatizes.

Whatever that means.

What it means is we’ll be at it until either the end of time, or we hit #1, whichever happens first (assuming both don’t happen in simultaneous singularity).

How 2B Confused #45 download link (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9), mixcloud stream.

A few highlights.

44. How 2B Confused

Installment #44 of How 2B Confused aired back in February, 2023 (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9).

How 2B Confused has been airing for the past couple of years, but for various reasons has been getting ignored here at Randophonic.com. That is now changing. It’s our longest countdown yet, also our most random and least concise, tracking as it does the 1499 Records We All Really Need To Hear Before The Eschaton Immenatizes.

Whatever that means.

What it means is we’ll be at it until either the end of time, or we hit #1, whichever happens first (assuming both don’t happen in simultaneous singularity).

Download link (c/o CiTR.FM.101.9) Mixcloud stream.

A few highlights from How 2B Confused #44.

11. transmission

“Call Transmission the song that finally got me around to loving Joy Division. Because at first, they mostly annoyed me. Not because of the music. Nah, it was the death cult, the ‘Ian died for our sins’ crowd. Which is overstating it, I don’t recall anyone actually saying that. But it sure felt like it at times. ‘You must take this song very, very seriously because the man who wrote and sang it killed himself – how serious is that?’ To which I’d counter, so what you’re saying is Joy Division are half a serious as Badfinger because two of those guys killed themselves. Which I’ll now apologize for. That’s asshole logic. Which isn’t to diminish Badfinger at all. Badfinger were a great f***ing band. But they were no Joy Division. They didn’t change everything forever.

(photo: Martin O’Neill/Redferns)

Joy Division being one of those ground zero outfits, I think, there being a universe that existed before them with its own unique rules and peculiarities, and then they showed up and those rules and peculiarities changed. Forever. And no, it wasn’t the suicide. It got a lot of folks’ attention, for sure, but if there hadn’t been something uniquely sharp and fresh and yeah, deadly serious, in the actual music, well, we’d be talking about some other band. And anyway, despite appearances, I like to think there is at least a little actual joy to be found in the Joy Division discography. Maybe in Transmission, a love song that doesn’t tear anyone apart, because the focus isn’t on some other — just the right song at the right moment on the right radio station, and what it can do for a lonely human soul. It can set that soul to dancing. And when you’re dancing, you are not alone … even if you’re the only one in the room. Of course, I’ve heard the exact opposite argued – that Transmission is a condemnation of radio, of all the crap that people will listen to in order get their minds off all the troubles of the world. Guess we’ll just have to keep arguing, because the guy who wrote it checked out long ago.” (Philip Random)

50. radio-activity

“Call Kraftwerk’s Radio-Activity the theme song for maybe the best thing I’ve ever done with my time – radio, that is. The creative exploitation of those airwaves I’ve had access to – the chances taken and the activities pursued, all the while never trying to sell anybody anything except perhaps the notion that freedom is real … at least for an hour or four every now and then, late at night, after the normals have gone to bed and the bureaucratic restrictions have been mostly lifted. Not that Radioactivity’s only about that kind of radio. It also concerns the other kind, discovered by Madame Curie (I actually learned this from Kraftwerk). But the one, of course, informs the other, all those mysterious and invisible waves permeating our various spheres and personalities, touching our souls, beaming off into space, alerting who knows what alien entities of our existence … perhaps a hundred million light years from now, when they finally get the message. And the amusing thing would be if the first song they ever heard was title track of Kraftwerk’s 1975 masterpiece – the geniuses from Dusseldorf doing their damnedest to sound like machines, releasing great depths of humanity in the process.” (Philip Random)

(image source)