Attempting to continue the afternoon Friday fun we’ve had related to rock and pop music, after discussing misheard lyrics and top early-70s albums, I submit to you: artists’ or bands’ with the best underutilized (by terrestrial radio) catalogs.

The No. 1 offense has to be, at least by the local classic rock station‘s regular playlist, is the Beatles. I cannot understand for the life of me why they beat to death the same old Eagles, Zeppelin, ZZ Top, Skynyrd (sorry Drew), Boston, and Stones tunes, yet they almost never play the Beatles. Granting that they wouldn’t play any of the older doo-woppish songs, there is still plenty from their last half-dozen albums that would easily fit their format. And even more insulting to John, Paul, George and Ringo, when they do play one of their tunes, it is often the awful Aerosmith cover of “Come Together.”

OK, that covers the obvious. So what other great artists’ long list of popular, or semi-popular, tunes are similarly ignored? It doesn’t have to be all of them, but most of them. I’ve thought about this important question, and the one that comes to mind is Steely Dan. Listen to WRDU on one of their “Block Party Weekends” and you can bet if they play them, the three songs will be “Rikki Don’t Lose That Number,” “Do It Again,” and “Reeling in the Years.” And you never hear any other Steely Dan tunes on the station, ever!

About 4-5 years ago the band did a show at Walnut Creek, and they didn’t play any of those three songs. Goes to show what Donald Fagen and Walter Becker think of the station’s judgment, huh? Stupid, really, when there are so many other great quasi-hits to choose from: “FM,” “Hey Nineteen,” “Black Friday,” “My Old School,” “Josie,” “Peg,” etc. And of course, they are exceptional instrumentalists.

And FM radio wonders why it is losing out to satellite and iPods. They haven’t had any creativity in over 20 years. Now they come up with inferior formats like “Jack” (“The River,” locally) to try and compete. Forget it.

Another never-heard classic band, for no good reason: The Moody Blues.