Via Gawker. I almost don’t blame her, seeing as how the roommate is okay and all. And obviously violence isn’t an appropriate response to monopolizing the stereo. I’m not a big Eagles fan, but that woman should remember that it could have been SO much worse. Air Supply, maybe.
Have you ever wanted to attack someone for forcing you to hear their music? I had a roomie who loved Pearl Jam too much. I liked Pearl Jam too, but not 24/7/365. And it’s not like we didn’t have personal listening devices back then. They were bulky and heavy and non-digital, but even in 1992, there was no excuse to subject everyone around you to your audio obsessions.
Please feel free to discuss bad or overplayed music, horrible roommates or whatever.
Hawes
Freshman year in college: Yngwie Malmsteen.
But I didn’t stab him.
And the “lady” above should have just thrown her roommate out of her cab.
Baud
Girl you’re every woman in the world to me
You’re my fantasy, you’re my reality
Girl you’re every woman in the world to me
You’re everything I need
You’re everything to me, oh
girlBetty.PIGL
May I be the first to say “Hurray”. If could without hearing Hotel California ever again, if I live to be 90. The odd bit bloody murder, spur of the moment-like, would not be too high a price to pay to die old and contented.
R-Jud
My freshman year roommate listened to Enrique Iglesias pretty much constantly. I didn’t stab her, but I did steal her peanut butter cups now and then.
schrodinger's cat
Me, I am a Queen fan myself. Can’t get enough of Freddie and company.
chopper
lol. my first thought reading the title was the only half-way related ‘Hotel California’ by Nerf Herder.
Felinious Wench
My husband. Neil Diamond. I deliberately broke his CDs and said the CD player ate them.
VOR
Guy in the next dorm room in college played “red red wine” by UB40 over and over. I wore headphones a lot.
Keith P.
Just kick them out of the cab. No need to get stabbed over it.
cleek
well, yeah.
Warren Terra
I worked in a lab in a room of four people, and for a while we genuinely competed to play the weirdest or worst music we could (as a palette cleanser from the otherwise continuous NPR). The CD collections of some of the foreign postdoctoral fellows in the lab were an excellent resource (yes, CD collections. I am no longer young). Note that some of the worst and weirdest music in their collections was American, they just had different tastes.
Paddy
First roomie in college had the album of whatever band did “Afternoon Delight”. I ended taking it out to the woods, destroying and burying it. When she asked I told her someone must have borrowed it. Thankfully she did not replace it and only lasted one semester as roommate.
We were not compatible.
chopper
@cleek:
U DON’T SAY?
srv
you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave..
Hotel California is really the only song where I start screeching. If Thriller was a molehill of overplay, HC was a mountain.
Jack Canuck
We started calling the twenty-something son of our neighbour “Foo Fighter Guy” for his habit of holing up in this little one-room shed type thing in their backyard and blasting the music at tremendous volumes. We actually had to go over there at about 11.30 at night soon after we moved in and ask him to turn it down – which he did, to be fair. Now he only does it during more reasonable hours. My wife was more okay with it than me for a while, being a real child of the 90s music-wise, but we’ve both been tempted to put a list of alternatives in his mailbox, just to point out that there are in fact other options even if he wants to stick with one particular genre…
Flying Squirrel Girl
I didn’t do it but always wish that I had: My cousin and his wife were driving across a bridge over Lake Tawakoni in East Texas, and he ripped his wife’s Cher tape out of the cassette player and threw it out the window into the lake. They were divorced shortly after, but I don’t think this was the final straw.
Amir Khalid
… but she just couldn’t kill the beast? (Sorry.)
I don’t have a roommate myself, but if I did he might be going out of his mind over my obsession with listening to Les Misérables. On YouTube. In German. (Hey, I don’t have anyone to practise my listening skills with, so …)
Und nun, Javert, tu deine Pflicht
Der Sträfling, den du suchst, bin ich
Wer bin ich?
Zwei-vier-sechs-null-eins!
Ben Franklin
Just one thing. Was it an AR-15 knife? Because you never have to reload.
Another Bot Splainer
She should get a medal.
Johnnybuck
Seems perfectly justifiable to me.
Scotty
I had a rough night and I hate the fucking Eagles, man!!!
Dennis_H
Her lawyer will, of course, use the “Lebowski Defense.”
I was on the other end of that. My brother kept hiding my Queen CDs.
ranchandsyrup
Maybe she’s just a huge Big Lebowski fan?
The A/V Club’s Hatesong series is purty good (and was about Don Henley’s All She Wants to Do Is Dance today).
http://www.avclub.com/features/hatesong/
jibeaux
Eagles are pretty bad, but hey, it could’ve been Steely Dan.
I heard a Nerdist podcast once with Patrick Warburton — you’d recognize him if you saw him, he was a douchey Elaine boyfriend for a while on Seinfeld, and he voiced The Tick — that dude is completely obsessed with Pearl Jam. When your man cave is a separate outbuilding for watching Pearl Jam videos….
Johnnybuck
@Paddy: starland vocal band. Burying it was a nice touch!
Felonius Monk
Challenge to All: How many times can YOU listen to Frank Zappa’s “Titties and Beer”?
kindness
When I was in High School in the early 70’s my sister would take Dark Side of the Moon and lift the multiple play arm up off to the side on the turntable (you young uns probably don’t know about that stuff) so that it would play the side over and over and over. She would just leave it like that. I didn’t hate Dark Side of the Moon but it took me leaving for college in fall ’75 before I could appreciate it again. OMG, I am so thankful I don’t hate that record because it is a classic (along with just about every other Pink Floyd record).
Amir Khalid
@Paddy:
If memory serves, they were the Starland Vocal Band, and consisted of a couple named Danoff.
Emma
Air Supply? Steely Dan? Wusses.
Try having a sister eight years younger who was obsessed with the Cassidy brothers (David and Shaun) and Bobby Sherman.
And one player because recent immigrants don’t buy two of anything.
J.
James Taylor makes me homicidal. I don’t know what it is about his voice, but the second I hear him sing, I want to howl or hurt someone. Though interestingly, I am okay when other people sing James Taylor songs. There’s just something about Taylor’s voice that makes me nutty. Fortunately, the spouse learned this about me early on.
RobNYNY1957
It’s amazing how long boom boxes persisted after the introduction of personal stereos. I guess they were more about invading personal space that listening to music on the subway.
Amir Khalid
@Emma:
So, after all these years, does hearing I Think I Love You still set your teeth on edge?
schrodinger's cat
@J.: Me too, not quite homicidal more like sleep inducing. Very nasal. He seems to be a favorite of totebaggers, though.
me
Weezer. It’s not terrible but gets old very fast.
chopper
@Flying Squirrel Girl:
jesus, no wonder the fish are dying.
Betty Cracker
@Felonius Monk: I don’t even have to click to give my answer: ZERO.
I have a theory about Zappa that y’all can help me test: I think Zappa, like The Three Stooges, is primarily a guy thing. I’m not saying there aren’t exceptions — there are, obviously. But I’ve never been denounced as a heretic for saying Zappa is overrated or rebuked for failing to appreciate the comic genius of The Three Stooges by anyone other than a dude.
Any fellow egg carriers out there ready to prove me wrong?
elmo
You people have nothing to complain about. All of your stories involve classic rock, pop, grunge – you know, actual music. My partner of 25 years (we’re getting married a week from Sunday, woo!) listens to country. And she’s from Southern California, like me – she doesn’t even have the cultural excuse!
Emma
@Amir Khalid: God Almighty did you have to mention it? Did you?
chopper
@me:
depends on the record i guess. i’ll never get sick of the first album.
Crusty Dem
Two roommates. Grad school. PHISH!
“No, see, they’re improvisational, so everything is always different. And I can trade performances with other people and its always new..”
No. It’s not. Or if it is it’s solely the novelty of new suckage. That shit all sounds exactly the same – terrible.
Emma
@Betty Cracker: Not me. Zappa leaves me meh.
The Red Pen
My wife worked in a vet clinic in Dallas for a while, and some of the clientele were fairly wealthy. They were usually the worst. For example, a poor family would be counting out change hoping to raise enough money to save their family pet, but the woman who arrived in the Jaguar would ask, “Would it be cheaper just to put it down?”
Anyway, one day an entitled douchebag came in wanting to board his dog. The dog was not up to date on its shots (those cost money), so my wife informed him that he would have to get the dogs its shots and then wait 24 hours before they could board it. “But my plane leaves tonight!” complained the customer. ”
We need to enforce these rules to protect all the animals,” my wife explained.
“Do you know who I am?” he demanded. She figured that he must be someone famous or he wouldn’t have asked. He was kind of old, so she said, “No. Maybe my dad knows who you are.” He stormed out (with dog).
It was Don Henley. Douche.
gbear
If I had a roommate, I’d probably get stabbed for playing too much Kinks. Especially in the car.
They’d have to like Rodney Crowell a lot too.
John O
My college roomie and still pal blasted Springsteen constantly, often, to his credit, with headphones on but often not. Unfortunately, when he had the ‘phones on he couldn’t help singing along, which was even worse.
I was in the midst of my Zeppelin phase (Zeppelin still rules) and teased him about it constantly. Then he scored me tix to see Bruce in 1/3 of the Assembly Hall (nobody knew Bruce yet; he could only sell about 5000 seats) in Champaign, IL, circa 1979. To this day the most amazing show I’ve ever seen, and I became a big fan of his live shows, though not so much his later work.
You may not like him, but if you’ve ever seen him you can’t help but agree the Boss gives you your money’s worth.
piratedan
@Johnnybuck: gawd, You’ve just Jumanji’d some poor bastard way in the future…….
kindness
@RobNYNY1957: I got this big JVC boom box just a year ago that I put my ipod into and take camping with me. OMG….the serenity of mother nature ruined by rocking loud music. You purists will appreciate that I go camping where there are no other campers to annoy. It is so sweet.
@elmo: Does she like the Dixie Chicks? Good place to start a country rock existence.
Citizen_X
Dear stabbed roommate: you got off EASY.
And I think Mojo Nixon would approve of this lady.
RobNYNY1957
@Paddy: I had a summer job (maybe 1976) where there was only one radio station, called a “Top 40” station, but in reality it played the same 10 songs on an endless loop. Afternoon Delight (rubbing stick and stones together do NOT make sparks ignite), some awful John Travolta song (plainly assembled from 1 and 2 second clips), Live and Let Die (the only decent song), I’d Really Lke to See You Tonight, something with the Captain and Tenille, and I guess five others. We all hated it, but we couldn’t agree on anything else to change it to, and apparently couldn’t institute a time sharing plan where everyone gets to chose the station for an hour. Well, we kind of did, but with the exception that I could not choose any classical music. So we continued to listen to Afternoon Delight all summer.
MattF
Further and further into the Wingularity:
http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entry/conservative-attorney-calls-for-coup-against-obama
What rough beast, as the poet said.
piratedan
@gbear:
guilty earworm du juor:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPi6fW8KBW4
MikeJ
@elmo:
Bakersfield had a lot of great country music. Possibly the last gasp of great country music before it all became nasal pop music.
Porco Rosso
I had a roomate that loved Pere Ubu’s Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo. I am a saint for not garrotting him with that cassette tape.
John O
@Betty Cracker:
I have the same theory about DF Wallace. Most of his haters are women, in my experience. Agree on Frank. Women don’t generally get him.
Dead Ernest
“Almost my favorite is Turn to Stone. I love that ELO.”
Betty Cracker
@Crusty Dem:
SO true! I have a friend who loves that shit, and you’re 100% correct.
chopper
@The Red Pen:
lol. “oh shit, you’re a rock star! it’s okay, your mutt can totally give all the other animals kennel cough. sorry about the inconvenience earlier.”
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: If you’re going to snark, at least spell correctly. They’re The Three Stooges, not Stoogies.
And I’m not an egg-carrier, but my no-longer-egg-carrying but still beloved wife appreciates most Zappa. Agreed, not as much as I do, but joins me in singing along with “talkin’ bout your hemorrhoids, baby,” at least. The darker corners of Uncle Meat, maybe not so much.
Anyway, so what? You’ve got your rom-coms, we’ve got Frank.
gbear
@Felonius Monk: Not very many. I shared a house with a Zappa fanatic and I got sick of him really fast, mostly because Zappa fanatics are just incredibly smug about their superior musical tastes.
Betty Cracker
@John O: I fit your stereotype to a tee, but it’s not that I don’t get it. I just don’t particularly like it. DFW has flashes of absolute brilliance that I totally appreciate, but they are snuffed in a sea of meh, for me.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
Nope, you got it, Betty. Dude music all the way. Same with Rush. Don’t know a woman who doesn’t want to puke just at the mention. Grateful Dead, too. I know there are female Deadheads, but it’s not about the music with them. Oh. Don’t forget Phish!
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Fixed. Thanks, dickishness aside.
gogol's wife
@Betty Cracker:
I adore Zappa. And I’m female.
ETA: And I used to be a rabid Stooges fan, but probably not so much any more.
Warren Terra
@Felonius Monk:
Are you kidding me? Alone in the lab late at night I would blast all three CDs of his Läther album, which has far worse.
ETA also: Thingfish!
fuckwit
@Betty Cracker: Absofuckinglutely. Zappa is dude music. So are the Chili Peppers. And Tenacious D.
The reason is that Zappa’s lyrics are infused with a snickering, juvenile, Dirty 1950s Catholic Middle-School Boy attitude towards sexuality that most American women find repulsive. And lots of fart jokes too.
Which isn’t to say there aren’t female Zappa fans, and he certainly was popular with the groupies back in the day!
He was, however, a prolific musical genius.
Worst date movie ever? 100 Motels.
Gin & Tonic
@Betty Cracker: I didn’t think you were being dickish, but I accept your apology anyway.
MikeJ
@gbear: Yes, everything you have said is correct.
Bobby Thomson
Obligatory.
ETA: At least it wasn’t Immanuel Kant, but apparently those were rubber bullets.
Trollhattan
@Felinious Wench:
A male Neil Diamond fan? Wowzers, never met one of those. He’s lucky you just broke the CDs..
College roomate who wanted to become Jerry Garcia would play “Not Fade Away/Goin’ Down the Road Feeling Bad.” Exclusively. Continually. Interrupting occationally to repeat this or that passage. For the record it clocks in at 9:14. That’s nine hours, fourteen minutes in mush-brain time.
Amir Khalid
@chopper:
I’ll take that as a yes.
Gin & Tonic
@fuckwit: Was that his earlier work? Before 200 Motels?
gogol's wife
@fuckwit:
I just do find him so much more interesting musically than most rock/pop music.
I saw him live in Oshkosh! It was great! Napoleon Murphy Brown was there too!
ETA: Napoleon Murphy Brock. I knew I’d get that wrong if I didn’t google it. I haven’t thought about him in years.
Citizen Alan
Thirteen years ago, my downstairs neighbor in my apartment complex, for reasons I still do not understand, kept “Eastbound and Down” by Jerry Reed on a continuous loop and would play it for about three hours every weekday afternoon. If it had been louder or if it were at night, I might well have been moved to violence. As it was, I just used it as an excuse to go to the pool instead.
Betty Cracker
@fuckwit: Have to dissent on the Chili Peppers. I love them. I had “Otherside” stuck in my head for days this week. And I didn’t mind.
Gin & Tonic
@gogol’s wife: The unknown son of Napoleon Murphy Brock and Candice Bergen?
gogol's wife
Where is BGinChi? I wanted to tell him that that fight over Immanuel Kant between two Russians in a line for beer in Rostov-on-the-Don is generating hilarious parodies on the Russian internet, but they’re in Russian and untranslatable, unfortunately.
Betty Cracker
@Gin & Tonic: Bless your heart.
gogol's wife
@Gin & Tonic:
See my correction. The brain cells aren’t what they used to be.
Joel
Not roommate, but neighboring dorm room used to blast Dave Matthews 24/7/365 and it was “Satellite” 50% of the time.
eemom
@Betty Cracker:
Same here re Zappa, though I have been known to compulsively hum “yellow snow” on winter mornings after letting the dogs out.
I think it’s because his music is not melodic. Technical genius it may be, but it’s not, you know, beautiful. imhfo.
Josie
@Betty Cracker: Nope.
geg6
@Betty Cracker:
I agree. And that comment was incredibly condescending. Chicks don’t get it, man! Bullshit. I get it. I just find it incredibly boring and pretentious while at the same time being puerile lyrically. Was Zappa a fantastically talented musician? Yes. Do I like what he chose to do with his talent? No. If I want to listen to a similarly talented musical genius, I’ll take Prince. Now that’s a badass.
eemom
dammit, no edit button. I think I meant melodious rather than melodic.
Interrobang
I once stole a roommate’s Ozzy Osbourne CD and deep-sixed it into a box of stuff he and his girlfriend had packed for storage. It was literally five years before they found it. It’s not so much that I dislike Ozzy, it’s just that this particular 240-pound tumour would play the CD at ear-bleeding volume while doing chores, which meant at least a couple of hours of inescapable Ozzy per week, and I just got tired of it.
I had another roommate another time who played Alanis Morrisette’s Jagged Little Pill at jet-engine volume until I damn near went psychotic. Now, I have trouble taking Alanis Morrisette seriously to begin with, because I’m so old (and Canadian) I remember when she was merely Alanis, and Canada’s answer to Debbie Gibson or Tiffany, so her reinvention as an “edgy” American rock chick garnered a huge “Oh puh-leeze” from me to start with. I think I put on the loudest, rudest punk rock CD in my collection and turned the volume up louder.
I too despise Zappa and I’m ostensibly female. Ozzy roommate also had a bunch of Grateful Dead jam tapes and they inevitably gave me a headache, mostly because that kind of unstructured noodling (I feel the same way about certain types of jazz) strikes me as the musical equivalent of masturbation — it’s probably fun for you, but at least some of us don’t care to observe. My speed from late-60s rock is more like Norman Greenbaum.
Old Dan and Little Ann
My roommate my junior and senior year of college spent most of his time dubbing Phish tapes to sell and trade with other Phisheads from around the world. I grew more and more bitter by the day because I am not a fan of carnival music. 18 years later that band still makes my skin crawl. I have to refrain from telling a few friends who like Phish how much I think they fucking suck every time I see them. It is not easy. Because they really do fucking suck. And they can’t spell. Also, too.
lamh36
So I’ve always been a big Dirty Dancing fan. So of course I had the soundtrack back when I was in college. So my suite mate, who I was good friends with in college (and beyond), and I were trying to save money during our last year, so we decided to attempt to share a book for this class we were both taking. We would study together and everything.
So about a week or two before this test for the class, she bought this new tech-vest thingy and she tried it on and asked me how it looked, I flippantly said “is is supposed to close?”. Well she didn’t like that and she refused to speak to me for at least a couple of days.
I figured I’d give her some time to get over it, but it was getting close to test time for this class and she was hogging the book we decided to share. She still didn’t speak to me and the test came and went (thank goodness for my notes, and a copy of the class material in the library) and I did ok. She still hadn’t let me have a chance to use the book.
So the day after the test was the weekend. I planned to be out all night and I knew she was staying in, so I locked the door to my room so she couldn’t get in through the suite bathroom, and I put a copy of my Dirty Dancing soundtrack in the CD player and I had it repeat “The Time of My Life” on a loop and left for the library.
It drove her batty! When I got home she finally started talking to me to tell me to turn the CD off, and we’ve been great friends ever since. She still reminds me of that every time I see her and since then she has hated that song with a passion.
I, of course, still love it…lol
Hal
My old co-worker in our 4 person cubical used to play Jesus music all day at work. From 8 to 5, Mon through Friday, I got to here all about the mysteries of God and how Jesus loved him. When he took days off or went on vacation, it was great.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
a few years ago, not long after I moved in to my present house in late summer, someone in my neighborhood, I’m assuming an unsupervised teenage girl, spent a long evening playing Matchbox 20, one song, over and over again, If you’re gone, baby it’s time to come home, or whatever. At least a dozen times.
Would I be starting a flame war if I said Matchbox 20 is the Creed of the second half of the first decade of the twenty-first century?
RobNYNY1957
@Amir Khalid: There was a phase for that — minor key soft rock with an electronic harpsichord. I Think I Love You and Love is Blue come to mind. I know there were more.
Roger Moore
“The Ride of the Valkyries”. My alma mater has a tradition of people blasting it as loud as possible at 7 AM every day finals week. It is naturally banned at all other times. I still can’t stand it 20 years later.
kindness
@geg6: You didn’t go to many Dead shows did you?
greenergood
When I was a kid, my next-door neighbours’ son played Creedence Clearwater at top decibel and accompanied them on BONGO DRUMS. I was SO glad when he moved to some flyover state and joined the Mennonites to escape the draft.
College roommate could sing the high notes of that danged Minnie Ripperton song and did so at least twenty times a day just to show us she could.
Oh, and I like(d) FZ (haven’t listened in a while): ‘TV dinners by the pool, I’m so glad I finished school’, but then I like(d) The Incredible String Band too, which most of my friends said sounded like cats yowling to plinky-plonky toys. Don’t care – still like ’em.
geg6
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Yes. Nickelback wins that hands down. Matchbox 20 is hardly the worst perpetrator. They are merely mediocre, not heinous.
WereBear
@Paddy: That would be justified albumcide.
Though their variety show was David Letterman’s first TV gig.
R-Jud
@geg6: I have never heard a Nickleback song. I’m only aware of them as a meme.
I hope to continue avoiding them the way I’ve avoided “Call Me Maybe”, Justin Bieber, and the film Titanic.
geg6
@kindness:
Once was enough. Actually, it was technically one hour of that disgusting experience and that was more than enough. Grossest people in the world. And that from a woman who actually peed in CBGB’s, several times, in the late ’70s.
Betty Cracker
@lamh36: Oh man, that was cold! (The Dirty Dancing thing, I mean. Glad you two made up, though.)
My mother once played her Cats CD on endless loop on a really long (like 8 hours or so) car trip to punish my brother. If I had been there, we would have definitely staged a rebellion. But he had to suffer alone for his sins.
geg6
@R-Jud:
Oh gawd! I wish I could say that!
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Love Zappa, Three Stooges, Jackie Chan, samurai movies, science fiction.
While an egg carrier, I was always an outlier.
Trollhattan
@fuckwit:
Hah. Saw “200 Motels” with my buddles (“I’m taking the whole room!”) but did actually take a date to see “Rude Boy.” Not such a good move on my part.
John O
@Betty Cracker:
Apologies. I didn’t mean “get it,” I meant “like it.”
I’m one of those Wallace fans who just assumes everything he wrote that I didn’t care for is simply above my ken. But my “on a desert island with only one book” book is still IJ.
nineone
No, stabby pretty much sums up how I feel about that band. Can-not, will-not say the name. Ewwww.
WereBear
@elmo: Congrats.
And… condolences. Is it classic country or new wave country?
Betty Cracker
@Interrobang:
Amen and amen to that. I like some of the GD oeuvre, but that part I can do without, and ditto improvisational jazz by anyone without the chops to truly pull it off. Musicians with such talent are rare indeed.
Susanne
Many years ago I had a neighbor who played “Love Will Keep Us Together” by the Captain and Tennille, over and over again, LOUD. She also liked “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies. It was a nightmare.
Susanne
Many years ago I had a neighbor who played “Love Will Keep Us Together” by the Captain and Tennille, over and over again, LOUD. She also liked “Sugar, Sugar” by the Archies. It was a nightmare.
Betty Cracker
@John O: No worries. I’ll have to think about that desert island book question.
@WereBear: I enjoy martial arts movies — even, and perhaps especially — cheesy, over-the-top ones. Have you ever seen Kung Fu Hustle? Genius!
Betty Cracker
@Susanne: Either one of those would make me stabby too.
Trollhattan
@Susanne:
Needs KC and the Sunshine Band for the trifecta. Unclear to me how someone ends up with tastes like that. Fetal alcohol syndrome? Lead?
WereBear
@Betty Cracker: Then you might like the famous Trilogy of the Razor.
It’s best if you know nothing about it. Get ahold of one, wait until the kids fall into a deep sleep, and then let the lunacy unfold.
ruemara
When I lived up in Morningside Heights, next to City College, I had a series of roommates. One was a lovely girl, who had …issues. She was from a white, Russian family that had lived briefly in Brazil for a few years of her childhood (7-10) and then in NYC for the past decade. This meant that she was totally down with the browns, was latina (Borscht is South American, right?) and she had a distinct schtupping her way to ethnicity tendency. She managed to find a boyfriend who had to be one of the few blond, blue-eyed latinos produced in the DR but their passionate romance broke up. Whereupon she spent over a week in her bedroom listening to Sade’s “No Ordinary Love” over and over and over. I swear to god, I was about to slice her head off with that cd after day 3.
Susanne
@Betty Cracker: I’ve always been proud of my restraint in that situation.
Felonius Monk
@Betty Cracker: Can’t blame you. I was never a fan of Zappa — too old I guess. However, when the Meridian Arts Ensemble Brass Quintet released “Smart Went Crazy” around 1992 that contained instrumental music of Zappa and Hendrix — I started to appreciate his music a little more.
Still not a big fan. For me his schtick was hard to watch, but I stumbled across the T&B video recently and thought it was kind of a hoot. But once was definitely enough.
And I see your point about the Stooges, too. I’ve always loved them and it probably is a guy thing. It’s like watching RoadRunner cartoons — you know exactly what’s going to happen, but you still laugh at the coyote’s miscalculations and bad timing. It just never get old — well actually it does, but we don’t ever admit it.
Susanne
@Trollhattan: I think she may have been possessed by Satan. I certainly wished her to Hell often enough.
gogol's wife
Well, for something good . . . Thanks to BJ, I got the two “Trio” albums with Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt, and I love their version of “After the Goldrush”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iifrf35cEv8
Listened to it about 5 times today.
WereBear
Don’t get me started, I was a teen during the ’70’s, but I always loathed that “sometimes when we touch” guy. Dave Barry said he sang it like a man having his prostate examined by a doctor with hook hands…
Speaking of which, Dave Barry’s Book of Bad Songs is a pillar of cringe-inducing awesomeness. Extensively crowd-sourced.
And I really, really hated, “I’ve Never Been to Me.” Despised.
Kerry Reid
An old friend told me a story once about having a crush on this girl in his high school. He finally managed to get a “study date” at her house one afternoon. They go into her room and he sees a mix tape with a handwritten label on it reading “JANIS.”
“Oh wow, that’s great,” he enthused.
“Really? You like her? Most guys don’t.”
“What, are you kidding? Put it on!”
Of course the punchline is that it was NOT Janis Joplin. It was Janis Ian. Or, as he called it, “musical saltpeter.”
Sly
When I was in college, I was subjected to the phrase “Dude you gotta listen to this Phish show… its sooo sick!” enough times that homicide seemed to be a rational option.
RobNYNY1957
I get so tired of music that is entirely in 4/4 time. (Yes, I have the same problem with Lohengrin.) As far as I can tell, between 1960 and 1990 (when disco and then rap put an end to any pop music not in 4/4), I can think of only a few songs that are not in 4/4. “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” (it’s a French song in slow waltz time from the 18th Century), “Norwegian Wood” (it’s a waltz), “Send in the Clowns” (mixed meter), “Scarborough Fair” (3/4, old folk song), “Bohemian Rhapsody” (mixed meter), the theme to “Mod Squad” (alternating 6/8 and 7/8, I think — tucketa tucketa, tucketa tuckatucka). Are there any others?
gogol's wife
@RobNYNY1957:
Norwegian Wood is not a waltz. It’s in 6/8.
Trollhattan
@Kerry Reid:
Ooooooh, that’s just cruel. Confess Joan Baez is one of my musical buzzkills, and she used to pop up EVERYWHERE, especially fundraiser/political concert thingies.
“Gotta go, man.”
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
Mrs. Fuckhead would listen to the Eagles 24/7 except I’ve hardwired the jukebox to only play REM.
RobNYNY1957
@gogol’s wife: You’re right. I’m still willing to count it as a triple meter for these purposes.
gogol's wife
@RobNYNY1957:
Actually, I see now that the edition I have is in 12/8, but on the internet it says it was originally published in 3/4, probably by mistake. At any rate, it’s not a waltz.
gogol's wife
@RobNYNY1957:
It’s definitely in a 3-beat structure.
I’m trying to think of some other examples of non-4/4 but haven’t yet!
AxelFoley
I never realized how…advanced in age a lot of you here are. Damn, I just turned 40 this year, but I feel like a kid listening to some of you.
Felonius Monk
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader: You are so lucky. She must be a lady of very gentle spirit, otherwise we would be referring to her as the Widow Fuckhead.
Mike in NC
My old Navy roommate loved to play “Tubular Bells” just about every night. I loathed it.
Trollhattan
@RobNYNY1957:
My brain doesn’t retrieve in an organized fashion, but I managed to think of Lennon’s “Happy Christmas” and The Pretenders’ “2000 Miles.” Maybe because Costco has all the holiday lights and junk out already.
kindness
Ha….Phish. Lots of my Deadhead friends liked ’em. I went to a couple shows. The drugs were fun.
gogol's wife
@Mike in NC:
THAT IS BAD.
Amir Khalid
@WereBear:
The soppy ballad I hate most is Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight. Not even hearing the man himself perform it (at his one and only ever gig in Kuala Lumpur in late 1990) made me dislike any less its boring lyrics and that tedious guitar solo that every pub-rock guitarist in Malaysia learned to copy note for note.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Sweet christ, talk about feeling stabby, I’m not even ready for Halloween candy
LanceThruster
I recently asked my vanpool driver who played the same track over and over in both directions of the commute, “Do you have any praise music that doesn’t suck?”
(btw – I’m not in the vanpool anymore).
kerFuFFler
My sister hid one of my (temporary) favorite records in between her mattress and box springs. I found it one day when searching her room for regularly pilfered property. I decided to punish her by hiding two of her favorite records there thinking that when she decided to be nice enough to give me back mine, she would find hers.
The whole thing backfired. Weeks went by where she kept wondering aloud where her albums were—–and no doubt my room was subjected to repeated searches. Finally I told her where her records were and why. She denied having hidden mine, but ultimately admitted she must have when I pointed out that it made no sense for either Mom or Dad to have done it.
Looking back I think my sister may have been justified since I was listening to “Lollipops aus Wien”, a charming but cloying album of Viennese waltzes and “landlers” played by a small string ensemble.
Trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
To be honest, some was out last month, before we did our bloody back-to-school shopping!
RobNYNY1957
@gogol’s wife: Unsubstantiated hunch: When the Beatles wrote it, they had no idea that such a thing as 12/8 existed, and notated it in the only meter that came close, fast 3/4, played like 3/8. Then some professional arranger at the studio or the publishing company re-notated it into 12/8.
Mustang Bobby
Hurricane Smith: “Oh Babe What Would You Say?” It’s so bad I chose it for my nightly feature “A Little Night Music.” Grab your knives, bitches.
It was a hit back when people still listened to music on AM radio, so that explains it.
suzanne
My college roommate listened to just the worst crap. Her absolute favorite was the Goo Goo Dolls’ “Slide”. I think one day, she listened to it literally twenty times in a row.
evodevo
Back in prehistoric times (1962), when there was no such thing as those wussy “personal listening devices” – just a turn table with speakers – my husband’s college roommate played West Side Story over and over and over and ….. to this day he goes berserk if he hears “Maria” or “I Feel Pretty” or “Somewhere”.
zzcool
I’ve got everyone here beaten.
My sister used to play, on repeat, Middle of Nowhere by Hanson.
Remember those kids… I certainly do because now I know the words, not by choice mind you, to songs such as Man from Milwaukee and MMMBop.
She used to play it at full volume every afternoon before the parents would get home from work. Actually scarred.
gogol's wife
@RobNYNY1957:
Sounds about right.
Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader
@Felonius Monk: I live by the law of the blackboard jungle so I’m okay with these sorts of high school hijinks / cool-guy-with-outlawish-pseudonym-hazes-earnest-but-well-intentioned-long-time-commenter-to-great-amusement-of-other-cool-kids dealios.
Having said that, know that I will confront you if I have to. Felonius, don’t miss my demeanor as kindness.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@evodevo: It was in college that I discovered how a turntable really works. I had no idea that you could still hear the music with the speakers disconnected.
Roger Moore
@gogol’s wife:
“Kashmir” has some sections where the vocals are in a quadruple meter but the instrumentals are in a triple. I’m sure there must be some other Zeppelin stuff that’s similarly complex.
Tehanu
@Betty Cracker:
You’re listening to the wrong Zappa stuff. Try “Black Napkins.” I was in the studio listening to Frank recording it for about 6 months and what ended up on the LP wasn’t even the best takes. Maybe I’m just one of the “exceptions” but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one.
newdealfarmgrrrlll
way way back in my college years i liked Cat Stevens until i ended up in a dorm with the woman in the room next to me addicted to his music. She’d play Cat Stevens 24/7, and LOUD. And frequently she’d put it on, and then head out to ride her motorcycle. Still am not too fond of his music due to severe overexposure.
my revenge was to wait for her to get back to her room, then i’d blast Bonzo Dog Band even louder, and bolt for the library.
Tehanu
@eemom:
Gahhhh!!!! Not melodic? Excuse me, didn’t you ever hear “Peaches En Regalia”? OK, I admit, I’m not a huge fan of some of his more juvenile lyrics, but “not melodic”???????? Ack!
Wally Ballou
I work on an assembly line for GM, and as you might expect for a factory environment the prevailing musical tastes run to the shitty.
One guy, though, took the cake. He insisted on playing Nickelback’s “Rockstar” at least five times a day, every day, for more than a year. Enough of that and the possibility of bankruptcy actually started to seem less unpleasant.
? Martin
One of my roommates in college had the worst taste in music. Captain and Tennille was not appropriate music for a 19 year old in 1990. Never wanted to stab him over it, though. He’d cycle off into other bad stuff, including a large collection of William Shatner (who I did not realize until that time was a ‘singer’). So, yes, my college apt was rocking out to Capt Kirk, even when nobody was intoxicated.
WereBear
In the US, it was “Stairway to Heaven,” to the point that it was a joke in Wayne’s World: the sign in the guitar store that forbid people to play it.
Even a good song, played badly, can be nightmarish.
WereBear
@? Martin: I’ll never get over “Muskrat Love.”
Mind you, I took a cross-country trip when “My Sharona” was at its peak, in a car with no tape deck.
And it was still preferable…
RobNYNY1957
@WereBear: I think that was another one in the 1976 nightmare top ten office.
policomic
Freshman year, the guys in the next-door dorm room had ONE album and ONE single: Jim Stafford’s Greatest Hits, and “Me and You, and a Dog Named ‘Boo,'” respectively.
It was a rough year.
WereBear
My high school friends and I would laugh ourselves into hernias doing “Run Joey Run.”
We got especially poignant on the chorus:
Daddy please don’t / It wasn’t his fault / He meeeeeeeeeeeeeeans so much to meeeeeeeeeeeeee / Daddy please don’t / We’re gonna get maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrried
Emma
@WereBear: And I really, really hated, “I’ve Never Been to Me.” Despised.
Ditto. Co-signed. Also, too. POS melody, too.
Cacti
In this woman’s defense, Hotel California might be the worst song in the history of anything anywhere.
ETA: One of my first college roommates was a hippy and would play the entire dreadful collection of the Grateful Dead and Phish on endless loop.
But he always had weed, so I overlooked it.
Hungry Joe
I don’t know if this counts, but eons ago I was trying to get to sleep in a youth hostel in Belgium as an overeager American explained the lyrics of “You’re So Vain” to a Czech guy with limited English. “Okay, ‘You’re so vain’ means you like yourself a whole lot, and in this case you like yourself so much that you think that this song is actually about you … No, you think the subject of the song is about you. Not YOU, but the person she’s singing about. … ‘Then you flew your Lear jet’ — well, that’s a private jet, that means the person is really rich … the person the song is about, who thinks the song is about him … Yes, it IS about him, but anyway, Nova Scotia is in Canada, and … ”
It took about 15 minutes, and well before it was over I was wondering if they still had capital punishment in Belgium.
The Pale Scot
Growing up, my younger sister had to share the stereo, one album side at a time. I put on Quadrophenia, sis listened to the Grease album, over, and over, and over.
And remarkably, she’s still alive.
gogol's wife
@Tehanu:
I know! Peaches en Regalia!
The Pale Scot
@Betty Cracker: “I enjoy martial arts movies — even, and perhaps especially — cheesy, over-the-top ones.”
Watching Hong Kong movies dubbed in Spanish after Giganto Sabado, can. not. be. topped.
maurinsky
We had 2 neighbors downstairs who played, on a loop, Kokomo by the Beach Boys (hate), and I Wanna Sexx You Up by Color Me Badd (seriously!).
Kokomo is my number two most hated song.
Number one is Lady In Red by Chris DeBurgh.
WereBear
And we haven’t even mentioned The Pina Colada Song.
I despise everything about that song.
maurinsky
When I was 15, I loved both The Three Stooges and Sheik Yerbouti (Zappa). I think I outgrew both of them, although Zappa is most definitely a musical genius in the cool-for-music-geeks jazz tradition.
I have to admit that I find Pink Floyd boring. I know it’s musically interesting compared to a lot of other stuff (Money is another song not in 4/4), but it just makes me sleepy, mostly.
I like Rush, though.
I’m a singer, I have a lot of songs/artists that I don’t actually like but that are great to sing along with. Against All Odds by Phil Collins, Careless Whispers by Wham!, a lot of Billy Joel songs.
Mnemosyne
I cannot listen to Led Zeppelin. Ever. I had FOUR older brothers and they each had their SEPARATE Led Zeppelin phase, so I really had to hear that shit over and over and over and over and over and over again. It still makes me a little stabby.
My only regret is that most of them had moved out of the house long before my Duran Duran phase, which they probably would have considered more than adequate payback.
Redshirt
@Mnemosyne: This is blasphemy. Hating Zepplin?! I didn’t know it was even possible.
Now, hating Zappa? Hell yeah. Zappa sucks – like a really bad Weird Al. I’d listen to Weird Al any day over Zappa.
Felonius Monk
@Just Some Fuckhead, Thought Leader:
I would never miss it because I know that demeanor you are defunner it is.
Chief
You cannot play too much Eagles.
Uncle Ebeneezer
@John O: For the most part when someone says “he/she doesn’t get it” I always assume it just means “like.” Though I sometimes wonder if people from opposite ends of the spectrum aren’t hearing things much differently. I’m from the far extreme in that I love jazz with heavy emphasis on improv (not free jazz so much, but pretty drastic experimentation within a given form, long solos etc.) And also a fan of the Dead, Phish, Zappa and other bands that take a more exploratory approach to music. What can I say, to me that’s the stuff that is interesting. Could be because I’m a musician, but it’s probably the other way around because I remember always appreciating improv even before I started playing. Anyways, I know tons of people who hate jazz/jam and when I talk with them about music it’s often as if we are talking in completely different languages. Somebody above mentioned “unstructured noodling” and I hear that alot, but in most cases if we focus on actual songs, I hear all kinds of structure where many people hear none. Which is what makes the noodling make sense to my ears and makes it not sound like pointless noodling. It’s the context that makes improvisation interesting, so I could see differing abilities to hear context might explain how something could be pointless noodling to one ear, and a profound musical expression to another. So maybe people “get” different aspects of music which is the basis for what they “like.” There are definitely bands that I don’t get at all. Steely Dan is a pretty good example (even though all my jazz friends LOVE them.) I think I hear all the elements that would appeal to a listener, and it’s just the total formula just isn’t pleasing to my ear but maybe there’s something there that I’m just not even aware of that other people hear. For music that is as melodically challenging as SD is, I’m surprised how many (even non-jazz) people love it.
Anyways, I find the differences fascinating. At the end of the day it’s just differing tastes and I don’t really think anyone’s taste is objectively superior to anyone else’s.
Ok on to the topic of the OP, I have had friends who listened to so much Bob Marley that it pretty much ruined his music for me for a long time. And the Eagles were great when I was in 8th grade but long ago passed into stab-worthy territory for me.
Central Planning
When I was a kid (ok, teenager), the shop we worked in had a radio/tape player. We had a couple Deadheads that worked there. They played GD tapes constantly.
Well, since it was a community player, I asked if I could play a tape as well. “Yes, of course!” was the answer (we all got along splendidly). I think I put in Deep Purple. They asked if I would turn it off after a couple of songs. “No” was my response, although I think I broke down and skipped the last song on side B. They were in too much pain.
Ruckus
Worse than bad music was a woman who sang, and loud enough to disrupt phone calls, 2 cubes over. And not good songs either.
Of course about 3 years earlier a different woman in the next cube used to regularly talk loud enough to disrupt phone calls. Doesn’t sound that bad except that when she did this she was talking about her periods. TMFI, WTMFI
Poopyman
We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.
Omnes Omnibus
@Poopyman: I’ll post the fucking Brel version. Wait, Jacks was worse.
PIGL
@gogol’s wife: Robyn Hitchcock, on I Often Dream of Trains, has a cut in 7/4 time. In
J R in WV
My wife; Three words:
Doctor Ralph Stanley!!!
The whole genre. My next door neighbor is a ribbon-winning banjo player! He also is learning fiddle. Not violin, fiddle.
I can actually tell well executed from poorly done at this point.
You know how you tell one fiddle tune from another?
Different title!
Paddle faster, I hear banjos!
Paul T
All weekend I thought this headline was about the Eagles-San Diego game.
someofparts
@Betty Cracker:
Well Betty, I do like Zappa from time to time. Kind of like a strong drink or wildly over-indulgent confection. Not something I do often, but when I’m in the mood for it, nothing else will do. My personal favorite – Roxie and Elsewhere
Zappa was a whiz kid when it came to knowing his way around a recording studio. The same could be said of Todd Rundgren and, yes, also very much true of the Steely Dan guys as well. For someone planning a future as a film sound engineer, as my brother was, those are the musicians worth hearing. Also the reason my brother (and hence me, the luddite sister) didn’t listen to the Stones, who made a point of trying NOT to sound like they were working from a recording studio.
StringOnAStick
@J R in WV: Well, you are in WV after all…
Musical taste is such a messy topic, and most of us had our tastes defined by what was available when we were in out late teens, twenties and even thirties. Some of us move on, some of us don’t.
Bluegrass has made a comeback (here in CO at least) amongst the 30-ish set, mostly the outdoorsy types. One of my friends who is in her mid-40’s absolutely hates any folk-ish music with a passion, and had to spend days mentally preparing for a very close friend’s wedding that featured a bluegrass band for the post-wedding dinner party. It’s been 2 years and she still rails about it (the band was pretty good BTW – live music played well is always good). After her last rant I explained that every generation is obligated to adopt a musical style that absolutely appalls the prior generation, so welcome to your creeping old geezerhood. I said it nicely, but only half of me felt like being nice about it – give it a rest already.
steverino
Summers in HS I helped a guy with his newspaper route: a “motor route” where you had about 150 papers to deliver by car, and I helped when he took on a vacationer’s route, too. He had two cassettes: Black Sabbath, and a David Bowie. Often I was asked: If you say you dislike Black Sabbath, how can you know all the songs?
And in the Navy on scullery duty: the captain liked ABBA, and had a greatest hits tape on continuous play in the wardroom player, which my cook-boss would pipe into the scullery, just for me.
Fort Geek
@AxelFoley: Stay off my lawn, kid! *thoughtful pause* Oh, wait…I’m only 46. Nevermind!
Fort Geek
Back in 1999, I was visiting a friend in Clearwater, FL. I slept on the couch. Every farking morning, friend’s daughter’s best friend would wander into the living room, power up the computer, and I got to hear Creed’s TAKE ME HIGHER AT FARKING FULL BLAST…sorry. PTSD from that crap.
Best Creed joke ever: they’re what Pearl Jam would sound like if they SUCKED.
Dragoon
@gogol’s wife:
“Money” by Pink Floyd is in 7/4. “Spoonman” by Soundgarden has 7/4 sections. “Mission Impossible” theme (original, not the U2 cover) is 5/4. “Last Exit” by Pearl Jam is 5/4. “All You Need Is Love” has sections in 7/4. “Heart of the Sunrise” by Yes switches between 4/4 and 3/4. And there are so many popular songs in 3/4 that it would be impossible to list them all: “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica, “Try Not to Breathe” by REM, “Manic Depression” by Hendrix…