Since moving here to the Bay area, there's something I've been a little mystified by. No, not that. Or that. Not even "STORM WATCH!!!!" (™ Jen B.) or the sheer pandemonium that takes hold of the roads when it rains. (Sidenote -- I am the happiest girl in the world here. Rain is the height of inclement weather! That would have any Canadian doing cartwheels of sheer joy.) So what then, you ask? Mainly, that most times you could turn on the radio -- not just one station, but at least 3 or 4 -- and think you were in 1997. So you check your iPhone for the date. Then remind yourself that if this was 1997, you wouldn't be checking your iPhone. Unless... you came back from the future. Hmmm. Or maybe the music of 1997 was 11 years ahead of its time?

I'm perplexed. And apparently can't decide whether to speak about myself in the first or second person. That's usually the giveaway.

It's not that I don't have appreciation for Semisonic, Fastball, Tonic, Sugar Ray, Paula Cole, Chumbawamba, the debut albums of Third Eye Blind and Matchbox Twenty, and some vintage Sarah McLachlan... and when they feel like goin' a little more mod, taking a brief jump forward to 1998 and Edwin McCain. I do. In fact, I think I own most of those CDs. But when the only time I hear SIXX:A.M. is on my MySpace, MTV (if I happen to have it on during a time I can catch the whole three or so videos it shows every day) or my iPhone/iPod, my inner music junkie tends to feel that this could potentially be a mini current pop culture crisis in the making.

And no, said stations playing Timbaland's "Apologize" 32508108608208582 times a day doesn't really solve this for me. But hey, I know. They tried. Snaps for everyone! I also realize that it could be demographics. There's a lot of young people here, and maybe we just want to revel in high school/university good time nostalgia.

Still, this is California. L.A. is the industry city. San Francisco by all rights should have a scene (but not an arms race... although Fall Out Boy may disagree). I may have been expecting all the latest and the greatest to hit the airwaves here, and hints of who you just know is going to break out with that smash hit -- before they do.

Until that happens, I'll be hitting the Internet airwaves instead, fulfilling my musical needs by perusing what's new at the iTunes Store and at Yahoo! Music, keeping a finger on the MySpace pulse, and checking in with what other stations across the U.S., Canada, and Australia have on listening offer.

Music for me tends to become a soundtrack of life as it is lived. Certain songs will always remind me of big moments, of where I was and what I was doing when it was there in the background. So I'm asking for the fresh and new, the yet-to-be-discovered and the blockbusters of the moment. Because personally? While 1997 was a good year, where I really like living is 2008.