Several of my friends like Linkin Park.
I have alot of sympathy for Yosemitebabe. If you work in a place that a different person gets to listen to what they want for a day, someone will pick country one day, another person will pick top forty the next, rock the next. But when it comes your turn and you want to listen to classical, you are forbidden.
People will say they can listen to everything but classical. They also think that everybody likes their music, but no one could possibly like classical. I like different forms of music, one of those forms is classical.
The two worst music moments of my life:
- I was doing temp work for a typesetting company, stuck in the orifice eight hours a day, listening to Top 40 music, at a time when the big hit was Elton John’s “Blue Eyes.”
“Blue Eyes . . . .
baby’s got . . .
. . . blue eyes”
And I LIKE Elton John. I would have disemboweled him for that atrocity.
The other time was when my boss and I were driving across several states to some convention, and at night, when I was trying to sleep, he was playing Barry Manilow’s Greatest Hits, and trying to sing along with Barry in the most tone-deaf voice I have ever heard attempt to sing.
:: flashback flinches ::
My brother once thought it’d be funny to tape “Muffy” by King Missle repetedly on both sides of a 90 minute tape. If you’ve never heard the song, it’s novelty-esque with purposely extremely bad singing. He was driving our carpool to school, so I couldn’t get out of it. We listened to only that tape for about a week. Did I mention that we lived 40 minutes away from school. Each way. shudder
Oh yeah, I forgot one. My suitemate likes this Techno Remix of Fur Elise ALOT. He plays it at least 3 times a day (LOUDLY). He wakes up to it in the morning. As do I, since it is so loud. And then, about 3 days ago, it went off, and I guess that he just forgot to turn it off when he went to the shower, and it continued to play, over and over again, for about 35 minutes (I guess it was a long shower). I used to like that song alot, but now it has been ruined for me forever. 
The mexican restaurant I work at… an endless loop of spanish/mexican/whatever music. The worst part: I know the words to every single song and have no idea what I’m saying.
Years ago, when my uncle was still able to drive, he’d take his fam and mine in the van and we were stuck listening to his favorite cassette tapes, of which there were precious few:
–The Best of Gordon Lightfoot
–the Best of Engelbert Humperdinck
–Harmonica Boys (some pair of German guys who turned every song into a polka)
I didn’t hate any of them, but…this was all we heard from California to Nevada or Arizona and back. Dear God, how did we ever survive?
My dentist’s office has started to play a Christian pop music station for background. Not only is this, IMHO, inappropriate, but the music is just plain awful. Horrible, horrible crap.
I worked in a record store back in the late 80s/early 90s. My boss would play the Bee Gees. Over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over.
Not the artists that were currently on the top 40. The Bee Gees.
Disco was dead. But she’d play the Bee Gees.
The Summer of Love/Woodstock revival was dead. But she’d play the BeeGees.
It got to the point where the district manager threatened to fire her because we had all threatened to quit if she didn’t stop. She could only play anything that was in current release. She agreed and kept her job.
Everything was fine for a few months.
Then the b@st@rd label released Tales from the Brothers Gibb [BOX SET]. Check out the playlist. And yes, it qualified as a ‘current release’.
Thank the deities I had the classical room to hide in. Phillip Glass kept her out of there.
I worked security in a major redneck bar, so not only did I have to listen to country dreck, I had to listen to country cover bands doing it.
Usually, these were the better country bands, even some original, and I used to hang out with the band after close and talk music. Without exception every single solitary country musician I talked to wished they could make a living playing rock and roll, most of them hated country.
Anyway, one night we got this cheesy country band, older guys with cheap equipment, scraggly beards, and even less talent than normal. They did an all male version of Bobbie McGhee. I know, its been done with a male singer before, but imagine the most exagerated gravelly texas twang you could think of. “Freeedums Jest anuther werd ferrr, Nuthun l’ft to leeewwwsss…” I tried to pretend it was a Saturday Night Live parody, but no good. Then it happened. Johnny B Goode, with STEEL FREAKIN GUITARS. The horror…
I turned to my sargent and begged him to let me stop them. “We have guns for a reason for Gods sake, let me end this”. He just shook his head and walked off.
Today, while I was on hold when I called my doctor, I heared a plinky, Casio version of “Yellow Rose of Texas,” repeated over and over and over again.
The generation gap between my parents and I was a bit wider than that of my friends. Being a kid, growing up and sitting in the car on a long drive, I wanted to listen to some music I could relate to – 1970s era rock. Mom and Dad, whose musical tastes matured a few years before Elvis hit the scene, listened non-stop to groups that all seemed to have the words “and His Orchestra” in the name – songs about sitting under apple trees or instrumentals with typewriters in the background, truly awful stuff. I know big band is hot again, but when you’re 10 or 12 years old, there’s nothing worse.
When I worked at the college dining area, they only played R&B and hip-hop. I’m sure R&B and hip-hop musicians are very talented, but it DROVE ME INSANE! I didn’t like the beat, I didn’t like the rhythm, I didn’t like the lyrics, I didn’t like the singer’s voices, I hated all of it.
This went on for 3 months before I found a new job. A nice, quiet job.
Tell me about it!
I remember working at a store where the Muzak went out (or was discontinued), so we played the radio. The unofficial “rule” became that the cashier got to pick the radio station, since the radio was placed at the register.
I was always a good cashier. I was reliable and cheerful. I was almost ALWAYS at the register during my shift. But not long after the radio was placed by the cash register (and I always picked the Classical station when I was there) I was “no longer needed” at the register. All of a sudden, mind! That was fine for me, because even though I was good at the register, it was a little more demanding than other tasks, so if they wanted me to do an easier job, Okey-dokey.
So, they got someone else who wasn’t quite as perky and fast at the register. But hey! Who cares about their quality of work? They chose Top 40 or kiddie pop, which is (as we all know) MUCH better than Beethoven, and MUCH more important than how they were at their job!
Occasionally during the evening shift, things were dead, and I got to be on the register. I remember sharing the shift some evenings with a coworker who liked Country. We were the Musical Lepers at work. No one would let her play her Country station either. But since it was just us two Musical Lepers some evenings, we were able to listen to what WE preferred for a change. The Classical station was kinda crappy in the evening (it had a lot of talk, if I recall) so we’d play Country all during the evening. We Musical Lepers had to stick together. 
TELL ME ABOUT IT!!! Occasionally, I’ll encounter someone who claims they like Classical (and yeah, I guess they don’t mind it in theory) but they still aren’t keen on actually listening to it! And yeah, of course I do actually meet Classical fans too. We are out there. 
I completely understand although my passion is not classical, I do listen to it do to its appropriateness for my children and to practice certain choral numbers…I have a MAJOR passion for 80s metal (commonly referred to as "hairbands, but i HATE that)!!! Especially, Poison, whom I am taking my daughter to see this summer, I don’t understand why people have to dictate and control not only what THEY listen to, but also what the rest of us should and should not enjoy…Think about it, IF I wanted to hear what they like I wouldn’t be buying out the used cd stores for MY tastes, OR dissecting the web to find Poison’s latest release (this past Tues, btw, the 21st, it’s entitled “Hollyweird”) or checking Columbia House and BMG to find those elusive one hit wonders.
I say life is short, people are stupid, listen to what you heart and soul craves because you cannot take those wonder cd’s and its player with you. Relax in your tastes and tell others to brush off, you’re entitled to the same amount of time you are, IF they cannot be fair about it, then turn it ALL off and wait till you are alone or with people who appreciate you, but not always your musical passions.
My home and car are my domain and in them I feel neither disrespect nor shame!!!
Once I worked at a Spencer Gifts and they had a tape that we ran on Christmas. Lost of ads, and only one song: Rod Stewart’s “Every Picture Tells a Story.” (I fail to grasp why they thought customers would be happy about lyrics like “Shanghai Lil doesn’t use the pill.”) I liked Stewart before that; not I can’t stand to listen to him (it was about the time he went into his disco decline, in any case).
When my son was born, I spent about 17 hours in the delivery room, where they were playing the worst kind of treacly new age music - all synthesised pan pipes and whale farts. I tried to turn it off, but was scolded by the nurse: this was to help my wifes breathing, which was fair enough - the Ramones would have done the job a lot faster {I Wanna Be Sedated seemed apt}, but maybe they were being paid by the hour. Unfortunately, they only had the one treacly new age CD, which I was forced to listen to for 17 straight hours. Among the abiding memories of my sons birth, this bloody CD has been permanently burnt onto my frontal lobes, to the point where I find myself whistling snatches of it from time to time.
In my freshman year of college, I shared a room with a girl who had one tape. Well, she might have had more, but she only ever played that one tape. The Eagles’ Greatest Hits or whatever they called it. It took me years to stop twitching at the opening strains of “Hotel California”.
Later, I worked the evening shift in a Western-themed fast food emporium. All through the month of December, the manager played the same Christmas music tape. It was 90 minutes long and featured, shall we say, the lesser lights of the country music scene, performing their hearts out through the tinny little speakers. I’m not all that fond of country music. Bad country music is worse. Bad country Christmas music is just horrid.
Of course, now I’ve married a man who loves opera. But he knows if he plays too much opera, flodnak will have her revenge. Anyone for a little Holst…?
I kept the ‘Then Play On’ album on the stereo for about
four months. I had people rather sick of that. I wasn’t fond
of it to begin with but it grew on me.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!
Dave Matthews Band
Okay, his fiddler and his drummer are good. Otherwise, Dave Matthews is borrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring.
I got dragged to a concert and I nearly fell asleep during the show. The ticket was free, but I still felt ripped off. 3 hours of my life wasted. Dave Matthews is the most overrated musician I can think of. How dull can one get?
my .02 and I’m sticking to it,
TN*hippie