Not a member? Sign up now
May 18, 2005
| REGULARS |
|
||||||||
1. I'm on record as being pro-iPod, so if you're looking for someone to bash the iPod, you can go elsewhere. I like my iPod very much. I also like candy. And darts. And big pillows! 2. But it is true that iPod culture is getting a little ridiculous. The other day my cat started nagging me about my Sufjan Stevens albums. "Dude," my cat said, "I just got an iPod mini! Hook me up, beeatch!" 3. When do they start selling fake iPods, like those fake cellphones you used to be able to buy so you could act like you had a cellphone even if you couldn't afford one? Fake cellphones ruled. I just like the idea of people faking calls and eventually getting busted. Man, that must have been some kind of embarrassment. 4. I read about this thing the cool kids are doing called "iPod wars," in which a stranger comes up to you and shows you what's on his or her iPod, and you have to show him or her what's on yours. The person with the cooler song "wins."And I thought: this is why the rest of the world hates us. 5. But if anyone tries to iWar me, they should know that my Carly Simon beats your Kaiser Chiefs. Every time. 6. I like Apple everything except the Apple store. Man, the Apple store is like nerd Ellis Island, except instead of leaving to start families and businesses and make this country great, we just go home and download shitty David Gray songs. 7. I'm annoyed at those artists like Madonna who don't put their music on the Apple Music Store because they're holding out for a better deal. Not good enough for the Apple Music Store, Madonna? Well I just burned my friend's copy of "Like a Virgin" for free. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, toots. 8. Don't get me wrong. I understand the importance of copyrights and how it's important to make sure artists and songwriters are properly compensated. But if Madonna has to cut her annual Mediterranean vacation short by a couple of days: eh. 9. You know, I haven't been inside a Tower Records in two years. Thank you, iPod. 10. The one sensation you don't get on the Apple Music Store is the searing death gaze of the shop clerk as you ask for the new Sting album. That's a sensation we all probably need from time to time. 11. I don't mind the celebrity playlists on the Apple Music Store. But let's take it easy on whom we call a "celebrity," Apple. Danny Masterson? That's a "semi-recognizable television personality." 12. If your life sucks right now, go onto the Apple Music Store and spend 99 cents for a Train song. See, now your life is worse. 13. This doesn't really have to do with the iPod, but I wouldn't mind banning any further sales of the Garden State soundtrack for the next 34,000 years. 14. I bet if you're a young woman in the city and you go back to a young man's apartment and he puts on the Garden State soundtrack, you can be pretty sure there's an awkward moment coming up. 15. Unless you're into the guy, that is. But ladies: why hook up with a man who puts on the Garden State soundtrack for a booty call? It's such a gutless, playing-it-safe move. "I think I'll put on this Whitman's sampler of effete alt-rock in order to win the affections of this potential mate." He might as well start playing with his calculator watch. 16. You want a man with the guts to put on the Teddy Pendergrass and stick to it. You might clean your kitchen to the Garden State soundtrack, but does anyone ever clean his or her kitchen to Teddy Pendergrass? I didn't think so. 17. They're telling iPod people in New York to swap their white earplugs for black earplugs so they don't attract iMuggers. It's kind of funny to imagine someone going through all the effort to steal an iPod and getting it home and being like, "Great. I've always wanted the entire Poco catalogue." 18. I don't know about that $99 iPod you wear around your neck. Those things make you look like you escaped from an institution. 19. There are some people who say that iPods are making us all aural isolationists, that we're tuning out the noises of every day life: the chirping of birds, the honking of horns, the chatter of passersby. And I think: Amen to that. You think I want to hear that bluejay? Crank up the Ciara! 20. That said, I do admire the last remaining boom-box dudes who are walking the earth. There are just a few of them these days, and I love them when they walk down the street, holding their consoles on their shoulders, basically saying: I enjoy this song so fucking much I'm going to share it with all of you. 21. You can kind of do that with an iPod. Sometimes I'll get in an elevator with my iPod going real loud, and I'll be blissfully unaware that I'm treating all my neighbors to The Gap Band's "Party Train." 22. One thing about the iPod is that it's put such a premium on taste — listening to the right music, being up to date, making sure you're just as cool as your friends has never felt so important. But it's tiring. Sometimes you just want to put on Peter Gabriel's So and relax the fuck out. 23. Sometimes you look at someone's iPod playlist and it tells you a lot about their past. Like: Whoa, you must have smoked a shitload of pot in high school. 24. I have no opinion on Coldplay. And I think that's their problem. 25. Listening to the Ramones on an iPod makes punk really feel dead. 26. Sorry about that last thought. I don't ever want to be one of those "punk is dead" guys. Pretty soon I'd be growing muttonchops and sitting in a bagel shop having an 11 a.m. coffee and trying to strike up conversations with college kids about Gang of Four. 27. I held out on the Arcade Fire and that was a mistake. They're very, very good. 28. Whatever you're downloading right now, I am quietly judging it. 29. "You're So Vain." Nice call.
©2005 Adam Boyle and Nerve.com
|
Commentarium (16 Comments)
i love, love, love you collumn. keep up the great work!
do you think you could write this column more often? please. And dude, what were you thinking holding off on the Arcade Fire. Montreal c'est cool.
the conceit behind this column is way tired by now (really, it was after the third iteration) (as I think you admitted in the column a while ago) (though I'm too lazy to go track down the reference) but you continue to pull it off. rock on, dude
adam boyle, marry me.
There's a guy on the Ohio University campus who walks around with a boombox on his shoulder. I thought he was really retro until I realized that in his other hand was an iPod with an FM transmitter on the top. Then I didn't know what to think of him. Is he an iPod poser for carrying a boombox, or a boombox poser for having his entire music collection in the palm of his hand?
I'll keep my music to myself on my white headphones. We don't worry about getting mugged in southeastern Ohio.
I heart Adam Boyle. I wish to sip coffee with him and possibly makeout!
In all seriousness, is there a way for me to contact Mr. Boyle (as I find him adorable)?
One more thought on the apparent sexiness of the iPod, or at least the iPod Shuffle, if you're a woman. It's slim and light enough that you can tuck it into your bra. This can be a great flirting tool. ("Why are there wires going from your ears down into the front of your shirt?")
Re: iPod wars
This seems a very confrontational, frat-boy, patriarchal motherfucker approach to iPod comparisons. Why not take the hippy approach and just kind of groove to the other person's music for a few seconds, try to get in their head, y'know? Maybe you'll get in their pants.
SD, you will have to fight me for him. and i know kung fu, so watch out.
MJ-I'm sure you (with your ass kicking skills) are a worthy apponant, but beware: I am armed with a wealth of bad jokes with which to make you flee!
I personally suspect the $99 iPod only goes around your neck so that you can show off that you own iThings. This is only reinforced by the fact that you can get a non-i MP3 player that holds more music than the Shuffle for the same price (or less). Clearly, people with Shuffles are just buying the brand. I'm waiting for the iPod design to infiltrate our daily lives, just like how the original iMac did. Remember when there appeared to be iTape and iBinders and iTelephones? I swear, it's going to happen. Except, the iPod is all white, so we're just going to wind up looking like we're living in hospitals or something.
holla and remix. that's all i have to say about that.
The Arcade Fire is very, very good.
I bought the 40gig, whatever compumeasurement it is, thinking I needed all that fucking space to fit my music... and I did, I've filled the little white fucker and never managed to get it all in there, but I only listen to 5 gig of it which has made me realize how incredibly vain I am... concurrently, I realzied (having never heard of iWars) that I have been secretly longing for some uber hipster chic to ask see my iCatalog that she might gasp in amazement that I have the entire Masada and Smog collection. If this isn't alienation from reality, I don't know what is.
omg i was listening to number 4 on the garden state soundtrack as i read your little list. i couldnt help but laugh. but i should get some credit. "youre so vain" is on my most played list. :)
Now you say something