Taste in music

My roommate has the worst taste in music of anyone I have ever met.

Wait, why did I qualify that? The people I have met don’t have any particular tendency towards music, good, bad, or otherwise. So let me rephrase:

My roommate has the worst taste in music. Period.

We all know good taste in music consists of two factors: listening to good music, and knowing which situations demand which kinds of good music. It is a delicate balance, and both factors are essential. You might listen to good kill-whitey rap, but it is simply inappropriate at a wake, no matter how good it is.

My roommate has developed neither of these skills.

And that would be fine. Not everyone can be talented in all areas. If I am a bad skier, for instance, I just try to avoid skiing. However, she listens to music incessantly. It is nerve wracking.

Part of the problem is that she doesn't have a wide variety of music. For the first 2 months living together, she played the same CD non-stop. I don’t know who it was, but it was some German pop singer who was the musical equivalent of Phil Collins. No joke. Imagine contemporary soft rock of the dentist-waiting-room variety overplayed with harsh, amelodic German sung with extreme force and complete lack of passion. She didn't have a collection of this "artist's" work either. Just one CD. Which she played at every opportunity, very loudly.

Strike that, she actually had two CDs- a studio recording and a live version. The exact same songs on both (though in slightly different order), and one had applause (stoic, rigid, passionless) between songs. I made fun of her for a while about this, and eventually persuaded her to find another goddamn CD. Which she did, from her only friends, the Brazilians. Which means I am now woken up not to German synth-pop but to spicy latin congas and tribal chantings. And she played this one album too, non-stop, for a good month.

I broke down and gave her my own CD collection, asking, pleading for her to play something else. She zeroed in on two CD's, the debuts of both Tori Amos and Fiona Apple. Both were hidden under stacks of CD's, and I hadn't listened to them in years; so the first few days of hearing them playing in the background fed my nostalgia and made me hope, just a bit, that perhaps this will expand her interested into some greater musical world.

After a full month of those two CDs played back to back and non-stop, I had to take them back, and slap her. Hard. On the face. Which didn't solve my problem, because she just went back to congas and Der Collins.

I learned my lesson, bought ear plugs, and gave up hope. So why am I writing this now? She is in her bedroom right now, making out with her new boyfriend. Her bedroom is right off the bathroom, and my last trip down there revealed that they are making out to Enya. Not just any Enya, but Enya's Christmas album. I am standing there, taking a piss, hearing muted grunts blend in to a rousing Irish rendition of "Good king Wenceslas". I nearly started laughing, and suppressed the urge to just storm in, steal the CD, and slap her again; more for Paul's sake this time than my own. But no, I can't do that; so I left, shaking my head.

sigh.