The State of Pop Music

In the wake of the VMA Miley Cyrus thing, I have overheard a plethora of conversations about "the state of pop music".  What follows are select clips from these conversations, except I replaced "pop music" with "room temperature", and took some creative license with the adjacent factors.


"I don't know, room temperature seems to be out of the hands of the people, it's really all about what 50 year old Jewish men in LA think 15 year olds want the thermostat set at when they go jerk off."

"It's true, it's totally true!  You gotta- if you're on a first date, the best topic of conversation is room temperature.  You gotta work with the shit you got in common, y'know?  You don't want to scare someone off..."

"That's always been the case though... good room temperature is all about gettin' it on.  Room temperature is a safe bet for setting the mood."

"I can't go out anymore.  They just, these places just turn the room temperature up so I can't even talk to someone.  This current room temperature is like, made to be turned up and like, suck the conversation of the room."

"Room temperature was great until around 1994."

"I think people these days, y'know they need their room temperature too warm. I don't want to go into those rooms, y'know? Hahahaha!"

"Oh I let the kids control the room temperature in the car once... it got so cold, I wanted to wear earmuffs."

"All the room temperature feels the same these days. I can't tell if I'm at my girlfriend's house, at work, at the bar, or even in my own room.  I do like me some room temperature!"

"Person 1: All room temperature has always felt the same, relatively I mean.

Person 2: How can you even say that with a straight face? Room temperature meant something back then... I think I'm dating myself a little here, but back when I was into room temperature, it was about 72 degrees Fahrenheit."

"Well now that wasn't really room temperature, was it? That was heat, which would later influence room temperature because it was rebelling against cold. Your typical person back then wasn't comfortable at those temperatures.  (some mumbled rebuttal, I think Velvet Underground was mentioned)  Yeah, I'm sure my dad has never even heard of those temperatures."

"I just shake my head thinking about what room temperature will be like in the future."

Most Unappealing Conversations in History Part 5: Cluelessness Breeds

Cam went to see a musical theater production with his friend Melissa, who was in the other cast of the production. In case you don't know, theater productions (especially at the college level) are often "double cast" to serve the dual purpose of offering the performance opportunity to more candidates and to give those with more prominent roles time to rest (especially when there are multiple shows on certain days). Cam and Melissa dated for several years and it seemed they are in the preliminary stages of a rekindling. To continue the fire analogy, they have both admitted that they are "cold", but neither will yet acknowledge the nearby fireplace and ample supply of logs. Tonight's venture, however, is not considered a date. After they watched the show, rather than wait with the crowd, Melissa runs into the dressing room to pay her obligatory compliments, which are a form of currency meticulously documented in the minds of every performer. Cam is considering the options of what to do with the rest of the night, browsing his iPhone on a bench behind the somewhat polished crowd of people waiting facing the door nearest to the dressing room for their performer friends and family to emerge. Cam may have a loose affiliation with some people in the crowd, but he keeps a low profile in the force-field of being preoccupied. As the crowd dwindles he peers off the screen periodically to see if Melissa has returned yet. Eventually the last few people wander off and he lets the light dim on his phone. The janitor pushes the door open with great mirth, having completed his duties early. He walks halfway out the doorway and holds it open with the left side of his gut, which protrudes at least 12 inches from probably more gut. He looks at Cam and goes back inside and vanishes down a flight of steps. Cam thinks to himself, "Melissa is so loquacious. It is wonderful when I benefit from that, but I can't stand it when she loses track of time..." The janitor pops back out the door and Cam unlocks his phone and starts once again "occupying" himself as he approaches, clearly about to start a conversation. Here is how that exchange went:

Janitor: Y'know there's nobody down there in either dressing room.

Cam: Oh I'm just waiting for a friend, she should be here any minute.

Janitor: I just looked down there, I didn't see anybody. Is she in the cast?

Cam: Well she's in the other cast, we were just watching tonight. See she went down there to congratulate her cast mates...

Janitor: It's ok, I understand. So she didn't get cast. So what! It's no big deal.

Cam: No see, they had a split cast. She performs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday matinee.

Janitor: Are you sure you have the right show?

Cam: It's ok, I know she's coming and I'll just wait.

Janitor: OK.

Janitor: Does she know you're here?

Cam: Of course she does, she was my date. Err...

Janitor: Heheh, you don't look too sure of that. It seems like a simple thing to ask yourself, really. Was she or wasn't she?

Cam: I guess not technically. It's complicated.

Cam: We used to date, but now we're just friends who hang out a lot.

Cam: It's complicated!

Janitor: I get it, it must be complicated. You know a few months ago there was some kid who got the cops called on him. He overheard a certain young lady he was interested in tell some friends that she was going to a piano concert, so he just waited outside of the building for her. Turns out he had been stalking her for months, and once she saw him waiting outside she finally had enough and called campus security.

Janitor: You don't seem like that guy though.

Cam: Then why say anything?

Janitor: Just in case you are.

Janitor: So if you don't mind me asking what did you have planned for after the show?

Cam: What do you mean "if you don't mind me asking"? You just basically accused me of being a stalker!

Janitor: A lot of the students go to Schmidt's.

Cam: Yeah, we're not part of that crowd... We're thinking of somewhere more quiet.

Janitor: Man, she's really making you wait. I think it's time for plan B.

Janitor: If you know what I mean.

Cam: Nah, she'll be here, maybe she's in the restrooms.

Janitor: If you insist. I don't think you should put up with this disrespect.


It is at this point Melissa returns and they walk away.

Melissa: God, sorry that took so long. Bridget and I agreed that the conductor can't hold a tempo to save his life, so yeah we were talking about that for a while. Glad you made a friend, is he gonna come with us?

Cam: Y'know, I wouldn't mind that. After being surrounded by all the pretentious theater people, it is nice to have a simple conversation with someone without secret agendas.

And etc. Cam's humble act of philanthropy, augmented by alcohol, set the relationship ablaze once again that night.

Common Ground

So The Ruler of the Universe wants every planet to elect a genre of music that most embodies its cultural and historical identity. This music will be broadcast to all space craft within 5 days travel distance in all directions from the planet, thus serving to welcome weary travelers and tourists. On the second Weekend of November, everybody will play their favorite music, and The Ruler of the Universe will tour the world and select the type of music heard most consistently.

Citizens of Earth were very excited about the chance to show off their good taste and witness the collective good taste of their civilization. There were even some reality shows where a couple dozen people lived in a big house and had to vote one another out based on their taste in music. Every show would erupt into bickering about vague generalizations about culture and human behavior, and every single debate would end with nothing settled and nothing learned, with people agreeing that everybody has a right to express their opinion.

With news of the musical election, the Subterranean Storage Dwellers recently started integrating themselves into society; or at least the parts that didn't bother them. The Subterranean Storage Dwellers are a society of mostly white men who decided that they aren't very fond of social interaction... or people. Since they couldn't crawl back into their mothers' wombs with all the the ammunition they were carrying, they decided to live in the closest thing they could devise: an underground 7' x 7' concrete enclosure with pink walls. "Somebody" (and nobody knows who) feeds them buckets of leftovers from the nearest Ponderosa Steakhouse buffet three times per day. It absolutely has to be Ponderosa. Jim Baker of Sheridan, WY was once caught accepting leftovers from the Golden Corral Buffet. The overlords of the society of Subterranean Storage Dwellers held a press conference announcing to the world that Jim Sheridan was not a true Subterranean Lard Creature but a pale obese misanthrope in a pink concrete box. The rest of the world couldn't tell the difference so they ignored it entirely as they have always done. The Subterranean Storage Dwellers held chapter meetings across the land to decide what music they will select. It was a short meeting because they have all done the exact same things at the exact same time as one another and have had the exact same experiences, so there was only one song even suggested.

So the big day came and the world was was full of rhythm and melody. The Ruler of the of the Universe was scanning the world with all the state-of-the-art sound data collection devices and hearing all completely different types of music:

Jazz. Country. Baroque. Rockabilly. Ska. First Generation Ska Revival. Second Gen. Ska Revival. Third Gen Ska Revival. Fourth Gen Ska Revival. Dubstep. New Wave. Hardcore. Grindcore. Metalcore. Nerdcore. Spazcore. Zydeco. Zouk. Rap. Romanian Techno. Romanian Trance. Transylvanian Romantic Techno. Edgar Winter Group. Pat Metheny Group. Blue Man Group. 9 Nordic Men Pouring a Bag of Wrenches Upon an Upturned Drum Kit Group. Spanish Gypsy Music. R & B. Tenacious D. Prog Rock. Kraut Rock. Pirate Rock. Crocodile Rock. Jam. Jock Jams. Mamie Jams. Indie. Folk. Tecnho. Indie folk with a little techno thrown in for good measure. World. Goth Industrial. Spanish Art Song. French Art Song. Old Fart Song. Pan flute.

-70% of Earth's population played no music, ostensibly because they didn't know how to operate a stereo or are indifferent to music altogether.

-28 million people said "Aaawwww shiiiit, that's my jam, yo!" 27.99 million were trying to be ironic.

-7 million relationships ended over song choices.

-11 Million people thought to themselves that they would have chosen a more obscure Radiohead song.

The Ruler of the Universe couldn't make any sense of it all except that he heard one song most often: "Margaritaville". It was initially announced that Classic Rock was the official genre of Earth, but the Subterranean Storage Dwellers protested that they only voted for "Margaritaville", nothing else. The rest of the world vehemently protested in one big garbled mess of colliding voices that the Ruler of the Universe couldn't understand and, given that the rest of the universe was still to be visited, didn't have time to figure out. So throughout the universe, Earth is represented specifically by the song "Margaritaville", while other planets treat listeners to an entire genre of music with immense variety and enchanting nuance. Whenever other beings headed towards Earth carrying new technology, culture, and cures to the latest diseases, they had to endure 5 days of nonstop "Margaritaville". In the first 3 months, 307 spacecraft intended to visit Earth, every single one turned around in less than 10 hours.

Slorb Sarzlebarts has it tough. He works two jobs and commutes across the galaxy once a month. He uses a shortcut that takes him right past Earth, which meant that he now had to listed to "Margaritaville" for 5 days going towards Earth, and another 5 days once he passes it... so 10 days straight during his monthly commute, "Margaritaville". He spent a while trying to decide if he would rather avoid the shortcut and add a week to his commute or just endure the torture. Then he remembered his planet-vaporizing proton laser. He scolded himself for considering that an option. "These poor fuckers must really have it rough," he thought. "It's probably all one huge misunderstanding that they selected "Margaritaville" as their best representation. They are probably trying to contact the Ruler of the Universe right now to correct the situation." Slorb decided to approach Earth's atmosphere and listen to our non-"Margaritaville" transmissions. The first thing he picked up was an FM radio talk show where some maniac was yelling at someone who called in to their talk show, "Do you not like hearing "Margaritaville"? If not, then you must hate Earth, and I don't think you should be entitled to the same freedoms we all enjoy. If you don't like "Margaritaville", then you should just move to another planet because you are a real threat to our culture and our happiness. Everybody loves Margaritaville. Our troops fought and died for Margaritaville!" Slorb navigated to a safe distance and mercifully destroyed Earth, and the rest of the universe pretended not to notice, but they marveled as a mysterious remote cloud of debris spiraled brilliantly into the sun like salt spilled from a shaker.