Hold The Music
Today I spent more than an hour of my life in hold music hell. How do you get that gig— composing hold music? Is there an agent somewhere who only has clients who write bad jazz pieces for different companies? Or is there just a giant repository owned by one conglomerate where they own the rights to all the bad hold music and sell it piece-by-piece? Maybe it's someone's job to listen to all the bad music posted to YouTube and then offer the musician a set amount of money for full rights to the work?
Can you imagine selling your music to someone for $200 and then a year later hearing it every time your insurance company puts you on hold? Only you don't hear the whole piece—just thirty seconds of it in a continual, nauseating loop. No one I know would choose to listen to hold music when there is so much music out there to choose from.
I love music. I have pretty eclectic tastes, but I'm not a huge snob about it. I can't be, because I am terrible at remembering the names of songs, let alone the band or performer. I have a couple of bands and singers that I listen to all the time. They're familiar and I know all the words. Then there is the music on the radio. When my teenagers are in the car, it is usually pop. When my husband is driving it's 80s or classic rock. When I'm driving, it's NPR or whatever the radio was tuned to last.
Some of the current pop music is growing on me. It's got a good beat, the words are easy to remember (there aren't usually a lot of different ones- oops, I am a snob), and I can sing with it at the top of my lungs with my two girls. I don't read into the lyrics too much, which means I might not know what the song is really supposed to be about. There are plenty lyrics with sexual innuendos, lyrics about cheating and loving and being free. There are songs I feel bad about listening to later when I find out what the singer is really saying, but sometimes that takes a while.
If you only listen to the songs on a superficial level, they can be a little confusing. On the other hand, you can also interpret them in a way that makes sense to you. For example:
"I can't feel my face when I'm with you, but I love it."
My interpretation: The singer (in the band The Weeknd) is singing this song to his dermatologist, who he visits to get botox injections. He's very happy with the services he's receiving.
"I keep on hoping we'll eat cake by the ocean."
My interpretation: DNCE (Joe Jonas' new band?) is so hungry after a long day of playing music for the masses, that all they want is to sit by the ocean and eat cake. I can only assume the cake is a layered triple chocolate mousse, or perhaps something more celebratory like funfetti with pink and yellow frosting. I can understand this feeling. I get it all the time.
My artistic interpretation:
Here are the actual songs. Don't blame me if they're terrible. And don't blame me if they get in your head.