AN IRISH radio presenter played one song on repeat for two whole hours yesterday evening to reflect the times we're in.
The song in question? 'Every Day Is Exactly The Same' by Nine Inch Nails.
An apt choice by RTÉ 2XM presenter Graham Smyth, who hosts the Painted Flowers alternative music segment every Thursday night: as Ireland enters its seventh week of Level 5 lockdown, every day is fairly indistinguishable from the rest.
Graham, who also goes as 'Mr Myth', told Dubin Live yesterday that he was planning the unique piece of performance art "to highlight how powerful radio can be as both a media and artform".
Tracklist from last night's show on @rte2xm Check out my feed for the concept behind this. Back to "normal" proceedings next week 🖤 pic.twitter.com/vfSEXpDnOz
— Graham Smyth (@mrmythsounds) February 19, 2021
Admitting that the two-hour show would "not necessarily [be] that enjoyable", Graham said he had been listening to a lot of Nine Inch Nails lately and the lyrics and frustration in Every Day Is Exactly The Same "resonated with me".
He decided to play the song 24 times on the show, Groundhog Day style, introducing the song each time with a quickly-deteriorating enthusiasm, becoming "more lethargic as the show goes on until I'm sighing with despondency by the end of it".
Interestingly, Mr Myth's radio stunt finished up less than an hour before Taoiseach Micheál Martin confirmed in an interview that Ireland would be facing into at least nine more weeks of Level 5 lockdown-- so nine more weeks of Every Day Being Exactly The Sme.
You can listen to last night's RTÉ 2XM show here.
