First things first: I dropped the ball. I completely forgot to post last week’s show to the website. The “Information Technology Gods” must have been demanding a sacrifice I wasn’t prepared to give. Never fear—I’ll be uploading last week’s transmission alongside this week’s show, so you’ll get a double dose of the frequency. Consider it a late-delivery bonus.

The Panem Connection

Lately, I’ve been binge-watching The Hunger Games. I’m two movies deep and I’ve realized something: this isn’t just a “teen survival” flick. This is straight-up 1984 for a new generation. It’s that same gritty, dystopian reality where the state controls the narrative, the resources, and the signal. If you think Katniss Everdeen wouldn’t have been best friends with Winston Smith, you haven’t been paying attention. It’s all about the struggle to keep a human heart beating in a machine-driven world.

What’s in a Name?

Watching these “Districts” get sorted into categories got me thinking about how we do the same thing with music. Where did we even get these labels?

• Rock ‘n’ Roll: Originally a nautical term for the motion of a ship, then a euphemism in the blues community for… well, “horizontal dancing.” It was high-energy slang before it was a genre.
• The Blues: It’s as literal as it gets. “The Blue Devils” was an old term for melancholy and depression. You aren’t just playing notes; you’re exorcising the ghosts.
• Jazz: This one is messy. It started as “jass” in New Orleans, and historians are still arguing if it came from a slang term for “pep” or something a bit more scandalous.
• Country: Originally “Hillbilly Music” until the industry realized they needed a name that didn’t sound like an insult to the people buying the records.
• Classical: We only started calling it “Classical” in the 19th century to distinguish the “greats” like Bach and Beethoven from the pop music of that day.

We love to put things in boxes—districts, genres, categories. But at the end of the day, whether it’s a rebel song in Panem or a distorted riff in a basement, it’s all just the same human signal trying to break through the static.

I’m finishing the series. I’ve made it this far; I have to see if the machine wins or if the signal stays true.

Stay tuned.