There are quite a few acts (mostly in the classic rock genre) that I’m sick to death of hearing. At one time, I liked listening to most songs from these bands. Then I came to a point where I decided I never need to hear them again. It’s as if each song is good for a certain number of lifetime hearings, and that number has been greatly exceeded for the majority of these bands’ songs. Here is my list (I’m sure I’m forgetting a few):
Journey
Foreigner
The Cars
REO Speedwagon
Bob Seger
In each instance, there may be one or two songs I still enjoy, but the majority of their songs never need to be played again in my presence. For some reason, these acts were all most active in the '70s or '80s. I don’t feel I’ve grown tired of '60s and '90s bands.
I don’t know how old you are, but at 65 I’ve found that everything changes unpredictably over time. There were years I couldn’t listen to “Stairway to Heaven.” Overblown, overplayed, overhyped. But after a long rest I heard it again and rediscovered its magic. Same for many other songs. “American Pie.” “Satisfaction.”
A lifetime is a lot longer than you can imagine. Some day you may hear those bands again and want to hear more.
Yes - agreed. I avoid Classic Rock stations because of this.
But isn’t that true of any overplayed music?
I guess I will say this: I grew up in the Bay Area. Journey was a hometown band, and when I was in junior high, slow dancing to Lights while actually living in/near “My City” was very Wonder Years. I had my Winnie Cooper - ah, the memories
By the time I was in High School, I got into harder, more guitar-oriented rock. Neal Schon is a great player, but Journey had gone completely to the Dark Side. They weren’t alone, with REO Speedwagon, Styx going to the Paradise Theater, Foreigner wanting to know What Love Is, etc., but Journey was one of the worst, to my 16-year-old brain.
Don’t Stop Believin’ was one of those songs, like Babe by Styx, that came to represent awfulness. Born and raised in South Detroit. Ugh.
So the fact that it has been invoked by Bay Area sports teams, mostly obviously the SF Giants, and used at the end of The Sopranos? Man, that is just wrong. That song still grinds my chuckleheaded teenage-boy gears.
I got your Street Light People - right here. Fuck that song.
Heheheeh, I dislike Journey for my own reasons, but WordMan has enlightened me to his sense of hometown betrayal.
Project that over a state, and you know how I feel about Eliminator.
But yeah, a large part of listening to the radio has become a slightly tortuous version of “Name That Tune”, due to their playlists being so short. I spin through roughly two dozen rock/pop stations deciding in a couple of beats whether I want to hear that song again this week. If I land on something I don’t recognize quickly, I’ll sit there for at least a minute, because I know I’m not tired of it yet, at least.
If the local non-commercial stations don’t grab me with something new, then I switch to the Ranchera/Talk/AM Oldies stations for a bit. If nothing absolutely crazy or nostalgia-inducing comes on, maybe I’ll grab something as cool as Pena Tras Pena (it’s the metal band of horn sections that gets me). If not, it’s back to spinning through the rock/pop presets.
Paul McCartney/Wings/Beatles - Paul’s a genius but I’m done with him.
The Doors - I can usually kill a station playing a Door’s Song before the fourth note…and that’s from across the room. The “please kill me now vocals” and the cheesiest organ playing to make it into the rock world motivate me to “halt it at all costs”!
Since one syndicate owns all of the radio stations in my area now, and they deeply believe that everyone in this city wants to listen to a Steve Miller song at about 7:45 am and 5:20 pm each and every week day, I have grown to hate Steve Miller with a white hot hatred. He was never one of my favorite artists, but I did like “The Joker”…until now.
I like to keep local radio on during my commute because they give frequent traffic updates that can warn me in time to avoid accident slowdowns, etc., but in return I have to grit my teeth through yet another rendition of “Big old jet airliner…” or “Jungle love, it’s driving me mad, it’s making me crazy, crazy…”.
This may be a big reason I’m so sick of the songs in my particular list in the OP. I ride a shuttle from the train station to my workplace and back everyday, and the driver usually has the radio station on WLS-FM, a “classic hits” station. The bands I listed in my OP compose a LARGE part of this station’s playlist. (WLS has added a little more variety in the last year or so, but still…) One fellow shuttle rider recently remarked that he heard “867-5309” the last TWO times he rode the shuttle. I can’t comprehend anything that would qualify “867-5309” as “classic.”
I didn’t mind Steely Dan at one time, but now I hate them with a white hot passion. I didn’t mind The Doors til that stupid movie came out and every radio station seemed to play all Doors all the time.
I’m not a fan of the Classic Rock format stations.
I’m sick of Fleetwood Mac but Mick Fleetwood and I did it. I was a fangirl for a long time. I have most of their standard issue CD’s and some bootlegs. After awhile I started getting a little bored and my interest dropped off. I also read Mick Fleetwood’s autobiography in which he describes acting like an irresponsible, self-indulgent, drug-addicted pig with not a lot of believable regret, and that was the nail in the coffin of my fangirldom. I still like Don’t Stop, Gold Dust Woman and GYOW, but other than, bleah. At least they do occasionally put out new stuff and I really like Lindsey Buckingham’s solo work.
Both examples are artist burnout. I’ll also vote for Lynyrd Skynyrd, this was all on my own. I am a much bigger fan of classic Allman Brothers because of this.
I have a pet hate for Billy Joel, but unlike Skynyrd, it’s was my wife’s near tyrannical control of the car CD player during a vacation road trip and her insistence on only playing her Billy Joel box set that did me in. The silver lining to this was a couple years later she totaled the same car, with that same Billy Joel set still in the player. I made sure BJ was never replaced.
I have a more recent artist - Ray LaMontagne. I really liked him when he first got big about nine years ago. I even saw him perform live. Now, for some reason, I’m sick of his voice and can’t stand to listen to him.
