Top five songs about killing your television

Without TV, Riff Raff's hater count would be a small fraction of what it is today.

We're only a decade or two removed, at most, from the retirement of the phrase "fall television season." It's a misnomer, an anachronism, as if television totally disappears from the face of the Earth every May, only to miraculously re-appear when September rolls around. No, my friends: television is everywhere -- on a cartoonishly huge screen at home or in a doctor's waiting room or in an airport lounge or in the palm of your hand. And television is whatever you want it to be: hackneyed One Day at a Time re-runs, 1980s hair-metal videos, hyper-partisan throw-downs, ultra-niche web comedies, whatever. And, it's (mostly) a waste of everybody's time and attention. 

5. The B-52s, "Channel Z"

In which New Wave's party-down flower children Just Say No to cathode rays and televangelists and, you know, pop videos where people are afraid to dance, really dance. (Disclaimer: the author has spun Cosmic Thing more than you have Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. Trust.) In a lot of ways, the clip for "Channel Z" is sort of the spiritual (if not stylistic, really) antithesis of this thing, which is still reasonably brilliant and "fuck vicariously-inspired displays of passivity" in its own stunted way.

4. Riff Raff, "White Sprite"

Even Riff himself probably couldn't tell you what this song is about, but I here's how I interpret the chorus: bizarre underground rapper/MTV reality star gets is incessantly hated on; incessant flow of Hatorade keeps bizarre underground rapper/MTV reality star up late; waiting out crippling insomnia in the company of 4 a.m. infomercials while sipping a Sprite from his ICEE chain, bizarre underground rapper/MTV reality star is inspired to immortalize the surreal experience of watching carbonated detonations in a room lit by a television while barely awake. Or something.

3. Robert Pollard, "Television Prison"

Our Bob mocks the concept of cobbling together one's persona entirely from televised scraps. (From the hallowed Kid Marine, harking back to the days when Robert Pollard albums were largely unfuckwithable.) Or maybe he isn't, but if he isn't, how would you even be able to tell for sure? Oh yeah, right, like you've never used media to explain something about yourself or preface a story about something that happened to you. Unless you've lived in a cave until five minutes ago, if you claim this, you are lying, and I will not loan you my bank card.