When I’m driving (a rarity), I’ve noticed that I change the radio station to whatever my passenger likes to listen to. One friend is way into country, so I put on the country station. Another likes lite music, which doesn’t bother me, so that’s what I listen to when I’m out with her. (I will say, for those of you in the Southland, that means I spend way too much time with Karen Sharp and Love Songs on the KOST, but I’m permitted to mock both the callers and the songs, so it kind a makes up for it.) With another friend, it’s NPR all the way, baby!
But I’ve also noticed that, when I’m a passenger, we listen to whatever the driver wants. Maybe because my musical tastes are so flexible (or lowbrow), it doesn’t matter. But it makes me curious: when you have passengers in your car, do you change the station to suit them?
Or, you know, hide your Phil Collins’ Greatest Hits CD?
I am lucky since I have satellite radio. I’ll ask them what they like. I like almost everything. If they like something I can’t stand, there is usually a compromise. Since satellite has so many stations, there is usually something they can listen to.
If it is just for a short trip, I’ll pick something that doesn’t draw attention to itself.
I don’t have a radio/stereo in my truck. I prefer to listen to the sound of my Checy 350 with the Edelbrock performance 750 carb and the custom twin exhaust.
Actually, I never listen to the radio in the car. My car is a 15-yr old Honda which just turned over 180k miles. I need to be listening for something-going-wrong
Seriously, I don’t listen to the radio in the car even on long road trips. We don’t talk either. My two kids and I can ride for hundreds of miles with no radio and no conversation.
And if they like it, I turn it up. If they don’t, I lower it.
Perhaps this is rude, but hey, I’m giving your punk-ass a ride. If you wanted to hear country music or talk radio you should’ve driven your own damn car.
The same is true of most of my friends when I’m the passenger; I’ve been forced to listen to all manner of awful music, and I give them crap about it, and they’re free to give me crap.
I would say you are a very considerate person whereas your friends are not. But we knew that, anyway.
Usually I listen to classical CDs (currently Michael Tippett’s “A Child of Our Times” - really useful if you want to bluff your way in music - the sort of Pinot Noir of the modern classical repertoire - but actually quite listenable for all that), which I will trun down when my philistine cricketing friends want a lift. But not too much. I have this notion that I can educate them and broaden their horizons. You know, I think I probably do.
I usually wind up going “Hey, check this out!” and making them listen to whatever CD I’ve got in there. It’s even more fun when it’s something like Paul Anka’s Rock Swings or anything by Weird Al.
The driver picks the tunes, that’s a pretty standard rule. I like damn near everything but commercials, so it’s all good.
I have a cassette player in my car (not a CD player), so I drive around with a plastic case of about 30 cassettes on the floor (all dubbed off my CDs). I just tell my passengers to pick a tape they want, and I know I’ll like it because I put it in my car to begin with. I’ll give the radio a chance, but I have a few ground rules: no Gloria Estefan, no Eagles, no Fleetwood Mac, no nu-metal or rap-metal.
I thought about this, and I can’t even remember the last time I drove someone who didn’t also listen to country. If conversation is important, I turn it way down because I don’t hear all that well. If I’m the driver, I’ll listen to what I want! I also don’t argue if I’m a passenger - driver chooses in our circle.
I very, very rarely have passengers and when I do, they listen to whatever I decide. I usually have the radio on to a classic rock or oldies station, but sometime put a tape of something else in. In any event, they listen to what I like, 'cause it’s myyyyyy car.
Often times it’s no problem, as my daughter is my only passenger. Why, just yesterday I was taking her home for her grandmother’s (the “sitter”) and Ozzy came on the radio. I kept it low so as not to hurt her ears, and she said, “Turn it up!”
The rule at Casa De Maxx is drivers choice. If I’m driving, I pick the station/CD. If Mrs. Maxx is driving, she chooses. I keep about 70 CD’s in the car, so if Metallica is giving the Mrs. a headache, I will politely put on something softer. Or if we have snuck out for the evening, a little makeout music never hurts.
I usually don’t have passengers, but if I’m going out to lunch with some co-workers or something and I’m driving I’ll just put the local “mix” station on. It’s usually turned down low so we can talk on the way to the restaurant, anyway. If there’s only one other person in the car and I know that they like something I also like, I’ll put that on: if Lisa is my only passenger I can put the country station on, if it’s Jeff then I can put the rock station on, etc.
For longer drives with a friend or family member, I play stuff I think they’ll like but I won’t play anything that I don’t like (e.g., no Iron Maiden in the car with Mom, but no Barbra Streisand, either). I have eclectic taste in music, so it usually works out pretty well.
Any more than one passenger and I turn the radio off entirely. When people are in the back seat, and the radio is on, it becomes hard to hear the conversation of the people in the front seat. I have been left out in that manner too many times to count, and I find it really rude. So I refuse to subject my passengers to the same kind of rudeness.
When I have one passenger, we compromise on the music. Either we listen to things we both like, or, on long trips, we take turns selecting the music.
For example, when I helped my sister move from Iowa to Virginia, she subjected me to Shania Twain marathons, and I forced her to listen to…well, she likes all my music. Darn it.
Nothing. I have a weird hangup about putting on music when other people are around, and have to be pretty damn comfortable with somebody before I’ll put the radio on softly in the background. (One of the great joys of finally dispensing with roommates post-college was that I could have music on all the time.) Sometimes I’ll offer the passenger to choose any radio station off of the presets - that way, whatever they choose won’t be too icky, but it won’t have been explicitly chosen by me.
On my family’s vacation recently, my siblings and I all bought our CD collections, and mostly chose from each other’s - I put on my sister’s music, my brother put on mine, but I almost never played my own.
The car we just bought has a six-CD changer with a Random feature that will select a track from any of the CDs loaded in the changer in “random” order. When the four of us go for a long drive, we each choose one CD, put them in, and hit Random.
