ben, what you say is true, though the luniz will never grow old.

also, kube's recently been playing cassie's "me n u" pretty regularly and that song is at least 6 months old. i was wondering if perhaps the single had been re-released. what i need them to play more of is "need a boss" by shareefa feat. ludacris.

and schmads, "party like a rock star" is playing RIGHT NOW. "on a yacht with marilyn manson gettin' a tan..."

the new song that is making me insane is "ay bay bay." but i am loving the new usher/r.kelly duet "same girl."

oh also, t-pain was recently on regis and kelly. apparently "t" represents tallahassee, and "pain" stands for the struggle and hardshp of making it as a musician in fl.

Re: "Um-ber-ella": I take Rihanna on a song-by-song basis. I loved "Pon De Replay," grudgingly accepted "SOS," and am ambivalent about "Um-ber-ella."

Re: remixes! I heard a lovely remix on KUBE of that damn "Buy U a Drank Shawty," kicking off with a Kanye West verse rhyming "Run's House" with "a nun's house." I love that fucker.

Also: the refrain about "the rest of me" always reminds me of "Silence of the Lambs," where the name "Hester Moffet" was revealed to be an anagram for that phrase...I imagine there are more than a few people who'd be happy to eat Rihanna with a side of fava beans...

"Umbrella" changed my life this summer. For my money it's damn near "Since U Been Gone" good.

Goddamn you and T-Pain, Garbles. Goddamn you to hell.

KUBE sucks forever. Anybody remember their "New Music Revolution"- where they tried to compete with the then-hot KPLZ- and played Nirvana and Alice In Chains alongside the Luniz and Pac?

this year has been pretty crappy so far.

last year, with the triumphantly strange return of E-40, mixed with the boss bitch Kelis, the king T.I., Shareefa's need for a boss, the aforementioned SOS from Rihanna, JTim bringing sexy back, Young Joc goin down, Nelly Furtado getting around ...goddamnit, what a summer.

i realise that not all of those are number one hits, but compared to this years gross dominance of that fucker AKON, and his influence on TOP 40, making everything into a boring RnB "hit", last year was a FUCKING PARTY. even if you wince at Nelly Furtado or Young Joc, if you can't admit they provided better summer dance party hits than AKON has this year, than i don't know what your problem is.

i concede that kube, the commercial radio station, sucks. i just don't fucking care as long as i have my fix of shitty beautiful urban pop jams.

i will agree that "um-ber-ella" (ella, ella, ella) is the best summer jam so far (but please watch it with the kelly clarkson references), esp w/ jay-z at the beginning there, but the remix tosses in this dude talking about how he's looking for the one with the glass slipper to make her his "cinderella" (ella, ella, ella). WEAK.

but you're right, greg, the other songs this summer pretty much suck balls. i actually theorized to schmader the other day that they were trotting out chamillionaire because there isn't anything else.

oh and finally, jonathan zwickel, do you remember last night when dj scene was layering jay-z's public service announcement with some 80s track (that i can't remember right now)??? it was fucking SICK.

Holla if you remember Musicradio KUBE 93 FM, the top 40 station (Run DMC, Bon Jovi, Taylor Dane, whatever) and the blue and white bubble letter sticker that you could cut up to say PUKE 93.

What a shame.

@7: I started listening to the radio on my own around the time KUBE started trying to mix in grunge with everything else. I still have a mix tape that has "Smells Like Teen Spirit", Salt & Pepa's "Let's Talk About Sex" and Engima's "Sadeness" all in a row that I recorded one legendary junior high summer day. Back when KPLZ played Metallica... oh, I just feel old now. I had the blue-and-white bubble sticker on my boom box I got for my 10th birthday, I thought I was the bomb!

Most of my friends--ok, all of my friends-- bitch about the radio sucking, blah blah blah, but if you're in 6th or 7th grade right now, you'll remember these songs FOREVER as some of the most awesome music around. I know this sounds horrible, but this sort of misplaced white-kid nostalgia is how my senior class' theme song was "Ice Ice Baby" in 1998. Damn you, suburbs!