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February 10, 2008

Aversion therapy ()

by fluffy at 7:56 PM
When I was a freshman in college, I had a small but growing CD collection. One of those CDs was Weezer (The Blue Album). I lived in the dorms, and my neighbor and I got along pretty well. One time he flipped through my CD collection and saw I had Weezer, and he asked if he could borrow it. I said, "Sure."

He made a personal "mixtape" of the album, which just had his favorite songs from the album. Repeatedly. And he played it, very loud. Repeatedly. And his stereo was right against the wall between our units.

Not being confrontational, it took me about a week before I finally went over and asked him to stop playing it. My exact words were, "If you do not stop playing this album right now, I will kill you." And he believed me, as I believed it.

After that point I could not hear any of the songs that he loved to play so loud and so long without feeling very nauseous and queasy and anxious. So I hid the album from myself to keep myself from listening to it. The next time I visited my parents I "accidentally" left it at their house so I wouldn't have to worry about someone else leafing through my CDs and saying, "Ooh, I love this CD!" and putting it on without asking. (Not that it was likely to happen, but, you know. Once burned twice shy and all that.)

5 years later while going through some boxes of stuff at my parents' house I came across the familiar blue disc, and as an experiment, I played it. And I didn't hurt. So I finally ripped it to mp3 and took it back into my collection.

Tonight is the first time it's actually come up on random shuffle since then. And while "My Name Is Jonas" (track 1, which was one of the ones the neighbor loved so much) did make me feel a little twitchy, so far I'm pretty fine with it. (Strangely, songs from this album were some of my favorites to do regularly at karaoke in Seattle, but that's different. I mean, I don't regularly listen to Britney Spears either.)

Actually, after all this time I just can't help but wonder why I liked this music to begin with. I originally bought the album for "Undone (The Sweater Song)," because I heard it in a back-to-back set with "Bull in the Heather" by Sonic Youth on late-night radio one night and I thought it was the greatest song ever. A couple of the songs on the album ("Buddy Holly," "Undone," and arguably "Say It Ain't So") are fun to sing at karaoke (or play in Rock Band in the case of "Say It Ain't So") but in their original form they're just boring. As an album it's not very well-produced, either. There's no dynamic range, and songs are just ordered on a whim rather than based on any sort of flow which sounds good.

Anyway, right now "Buddy Holly" is playing, and mostly I'm just feeling very bored with this music. At least I don't feel too twitchy, though.

Comments

#10444 02/10/2008 09:27 pm
Buddy Holly made it into the Rock Band song list, which is fun. I guess.
#10446 02/11/2008 08:21 am
Yeah, somehow I forgot that someone bought it for the copy at work. I think we only played it like twice though before we collectively lost interest in the game (or maybe it's just that we all got busy with other things, like work).
#10455 02/13/2008 06:15 am
Spring break at Rocky Point... someone brought a cd player and batteries but forgot to bring any cds... so the only cd was the one already in the player, R.E.M.'s Out Of Time album... which was played on repeat for a couple of nights in a row. I still cannot listen to Losing My Religion without cringing... add a bonfire nearby and I might just throw up. So which Britney Spears song is it that you like to sing? =)
#10456 02/13/2008 09:01 am
Man, "Losing My Religion" is another one of those songs I can't stand to hear, what with it being on the radio non-stop for like 5 years.

I mostly do "Toxic" and "Oops I Did It Again." I can also play both of those on guitar.