You Are Not Allowed to Listen to Your Music Out Loud In Public

Headphones cannot be used ironically. And yet, there always seems to be at least one person per city block that thinks the reason you buy gigantic Bose headphones is to let them hang lazily down your shoulders, as speakers.

Listening to your music out loud in public is comparable to reading aloud from Chicken Soup for the Teenage Mother’s Soul in a crowded subway. I bet it’s a damned interesting read for you, the teenage mother in question, but chances are the demographic of those around you that give a shit is fairly low.

You cannot play your music out loud in public because that implies that a) you really fucking love this band, or b) you want the whole world to love this fucking band, or c) both a and b.

But face it, no matter what, no one will love Bruce Springsteen more than you. Sure, certainly someone will suggest they do, but it doesn’t matter if they’ve seen the Boss live sixteen times, and you’ve only seen him a meager twelve times, or if they are convinced that “Born to Run” is written about their life, because you know it was really written about yours.

Therefore, attempting to seduce innocent passers-by of the greatness that is Bruce Springsteen is a pointless exercise. No one will love him as much as you. All this other entity has for Bruce is pseudo-love, a veritable “like-like” situation.

The problem is, however, no one seems to play somewhat agreeable music (like Bruce Springsteen) over loud speakers. It always seems to be that guy who is really into Rage Against the Machine – who tend to sound like a construction yard after about two tracks – or the guy that thinks “Soulja Boi Tell ‘Em” warrants fifteen plays in one sitting – which it might, in hell.

And so, instead of walking down the street and hearing “Born in the USA,” which is a terrible song but sort of like “YMCA” (in that, it makes white people want to dance), my ears have to bear the burden of Superman-ning hoes.

The other side of the coin is, I will never play my music out loud on a bus or in a park because, even though I believe my musical taste to be a) better than yours, and b) smarter than yours, I recognize that no one will love my music more than me. And to convince anyone otherwise would be defeatist.


- I had an epiphany while writing this blog. I was going to use the metaphor – “it’s kind of like writing your opinion all over a wall for everyone to read, even though they don’t really care.” This metaphor perfectly describes what I am doing now, that is, writing my opinion on a “wall” (read: The Interwebz) and allowing everyone (read: no one) to read it.

I decided the difference between playing your music out loud and sharing opinions with everyone is that some opinions suck, but the gist of them tend to end after about fifteen seconds. You can listen to someone ramble about politics and know within the first quarter of a minute whether or not you give a shit and then proceed to tune this person out. When a person is sitting in a neighborhood café listening to Radiohead, you are forced to experience that audio stimulation for at least three minutes (per song), even if you decide you hate it within the first fifteen seconds, which is why the US government uses music as a form of torture.

-- another interesting side note: As I was doing a little bit of research on audio based torture for this last piece on my epiphany, I ran across this little factoid concerning the playlist used to torture prisoners in Guantanamo:

“That playlist includes many pro-American songs such as Neil Diamond’s song, America… Also included in this patriotic list are Bruce Springsteen’s, Born in the USA and Eminem’s White America.” (source)

The fact that I, unknowing of his abilities as a torture artist at the time, used the Boss in this article makes me that much more awesome. I also found out that Metallica and Sesame Street songs were also used as a soundtrack to torture. I then decided that if I had to be tortured by a foreign government, I think I would be okay with listening to The Count vocally recite the meter to "Harvester of Sorrow."