What Are You Listening To?

[Big Red]

I go through phases with talk radio. I haven't been able to tolerate the news talk radio stations for years, though. I've never been able to tolerate scream metal, even back in college. And if he tells me one more time about what a great message it has, he's going to get the message of my foot hitting him from behind.

[Jodo]

I know several professors who talk about their really long commutes they make to get to school, and I know a few of them listen to NPR on the way. I'm like...Doesn't that make the drive seem even longer?

[Big Red]

I know several professors who talk about their really long commutes they make to get to school, and I know a few of them listen to NPR on the way. I'm like...Doesn't that make the drive seem even longer?

I've tried NPR at various times. It usually doesn't last long. My wife will occasionally bargain with our son and tell him he can listen to his radio station if he goes with her to the store or on some other errand. It always makes the trip longer for her and puts her in a bad mood. I used to get annoyed when I'd get in the car and it would still be on his station, but now I usually just chuckle because I know what she went through.

[Jodo]

I can't stand if someone is in my car riding with me, and they reach over to change the station (or the AC either!). I can understand if we're talking about the station, or perhaps they say "I really hate this song" or something...I can take a hint, and I'll just go through the 6 quick select stations to find something else, but when anyone just dials the radio to something it irritates me.

[Big Red]

The rule when I'm driving is that nobody touch the dial other than me. I'll give my wife a bit of leeway on it, but the kids can't touch it. They can request something different and I'll sometimes comply with the girls, but I already know what my son will turn it to so that's out of the question. I did let him play a song this morning and we got through a whole minute before I'd had enough.

[Jodo]

LOL, that is great!

Another song I've been hitting up is Paloma Faith's Picking Up The Pieces. I sort of dig her style.

[Big Red]

I tried listening to the new David Bowie song. The 90 second sample on iTunes was enough for me. I might check it out again when his album comes out, but so far I wasn't impressed.

Shortly before Christmas I went through the handful of old cassettes I still have left from my college days (about half were old mixtapes--you know, back when mixtapes were actual tapes) and then looked up some of the songs on Youtube (we have a couple of cassette players around here but are either missing cables for them or don't have the right batteries so I couldn't actually play the tapes). It really helped reinforce my opinion that, with the possible exception of the last 12 years, the 90s was one of the worst decades for popular music ever. There's some stuff I really like (mostly country) and a bit still holds up, but Color Me Badd? The Spin Doctors? I'll make jokes about Hootie & the Blowfish from time to time, but they were far and away the high point of the stuff I looked up. I was pretty embarrassed to think that I'd actually paid for some of those songs/albums, but relieved that the worst of the bunch were copied from friends' tapes and cassingles.

[Guido]

Cassettes! Make sure to finger-tighten them before you try to play them- remember pulling the endless string of jammed cassette tape from a player? Trying to untangle it and rewind the thing so you didn't have to throw it out? Good times, good times!

I actually still have a functioning 8-track player that I hook up from time to time. SO horrible sounding, but a really great piece in the evolution of music delivery. As far as the current sounds, I've been listening to Metric for the past few days. They're a Canadian group that was the basis for one of the bands in Scott Pilgrim. The singer has a great style, kinda impish and sexy, and they're pretty cool...

[Big Red]

In one of my cars I had a pencil in my change compartment just for tightening tapes. Did you ever notice that the degree to which a tape got eaten was directly proportional to how much you liked the tape? In other words, my buddy's girlfriend's Sophie B. Hawkins tape never got eaten, but The Band, Zeppelin IV, Jane's Addiction and the Rolling Stones' Hot Rocks were mangled to the point that the tape was spewing out of the player like you used to see in movies. The worst I ever saw was one of the times that same guy broke up with the same girl and she took one of his tapes (possibly Zeppelin IV) and yanked it out entirely. I somehow got stuck with the job of winding it back in.

We never had an 8-track player, but I somehow ended up with the remnants of my father-in-law's 8-track collection after he died. I think they've been pitched.

[Qui-Gon Jim]

Um... I love 90's music. Jane's Addiction? Gin Blossoms? Soul Asylum? NiN? Pearl Jam? Nirvana? Cranberries? Hell, there are a ton of R&B singers from that period that were wonderful.