Posted 1:40 PM by Gene

When foregound MUZAK programmers want to rub your nerves raw they go the last mile. It isn't enough to play "Blue Bayou" a million times, or Billy Joel and Elton John until to you want to wish death to every DJ and program director of every ADULT CONTEMPTO (sic) station that is; they must search out annoying cover tunes. Just now in my corner neighborhood highway robber some computer in the distance played a COVER VERSION of "Fly Like an Eagle," that Steve Miller bore that suggests not so much flying as an Air Force jingle, only the "singer" had to add TEN MINUTES OF CATERWAULING suggestive not so much of melody as of a root canal or torture during the Crusades. This was the criminal work of something called SEVL (pardon, SEAL; it's the cute MCA and old NASA upside-down V), and it appeared in Space Jam, starring MJ and Bugs Bunny, which seems to have foisted more unlistenable tunes than any other cross-promotion (I BELIEVE I CAN FLYYYYYYYYY-YYYYYYYYY-YYYYYYYYY-YYYYYYYYY-YYYYYYYYY-YYYYYYYYY, etc.) Somewhere in Fort Mill, or the office parks of North Jersey, somebody is smirking.