I was just about shocked out of my shoes to hear “Theme from Shaft” played as the background to the local forecast on the Weather Channel, especially given the muzak-y tendencies of the stuff they normally play. Certainly brought a an urbane funkiness and sense of drama to the local radar map. What’s next, something by Sun Ra and the Arkestra, maybe?
But hey, I’m glad to see them getting a bit more adventurous with the sonic wallpaper. Hell, maybe they should take requests; steal a few of those VH1 viewers who are apparently abandoning the channel in droves.
To get the ball rolling, here’s a few instrumental excerpts that I think would go down pretty well with the extended forecast:
Aquarius, Boards of Canada
Porcelain, Moby
Columbia (the guitar jam mid-song), Oasis
Can’t You Hear me Knocking (the extended sax coda), the Rolling Stones
I give fair warning, if the Weather Channel plays the piano theme from Peanuts every three minutes again this holiday season, I`m going down there and heads will roll…
They need surfing instrumentals in the summer. Walk Dont Run, Pipeline, Apache. In the winter, we get more than enough holiday music shoved in our ears. I think they should play Tubular Bells` and the ominous theme from HALLOWEEN, just to get us ready to face shoveling our cars out.
I give them credit for playing “Mihalis” from David Gilmour’s self-titled solo album. Good song from an underrated album, that actually fits with the channel.
My requests:
“Blessed Relief”, “The Gumbo Variations”, and “It Must Be A Camel” by Frank Zappa.
“Green Apple Quick Step” by The Byrds.
“The Drive To Ripley’s” by David Holmes from the Out Of Sight soundtrack.
Anything off of Tangerine Dream’s Sorcerer soundtrack.
“Man With A Harmonica”, “Death Rattle” or anything else by Ennnio Morricone.