The Blend

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

-Albert Einstein

Nothing exhausts me more than the feeling of being held captive in my sister’s car. This in no way reduces the amount of love I feel towards my favorite twin, BUT, in her car she picks the tunes. I am thus corrupted by music I am ashamed to even be aware of (no offense Sarah, but I am pretty sure my whining has made these feelings pretty clear).

Yeah, ok, so this kind of assertion of disdain towards pop music would make anyone seem like a hipster music snob, but snobbery it is not. It is the redundancy of not simply the individual songs that gradually undermines my sanity, because pretty much any radio station, regardless of musical integrity, ends up playing the same songs over and over. But the tipping point into madness is how, with many pop stations, every song is simply a subtle replication of all other songs that infest the airwaves; all-demographic/age-friendly music at its most exemplary.

While getting some community service hours at the Goodwill, I was forced to face my mortality thanks to Sirius/XM’s station called “The Blend”. Though the title of the station barely manages to be accurate without sounding negative, it doesn’t even come close to how nauseating this “blend” actually is. If it were me, I’d call it, “the storm of many vomits”, which is also equally accurate seeing how it is a more specific yet, albeit, less alluring type of “blend”.

The first time I heard “the Blend”, I was not immediately put off, but the frustration began to fester and grow as I began to recognize the pattern of the station’s shameless redundancy. Little did I know, though, that the fact that I actually felt something (hatred) signified a tenuous, but nevertheless existent, attachment to the real world.

As the songs continued to pollute my otherwise scholarly mind, a sort of numbness began to set in. At first, I didn’t notice it, thinking to myself “Wow, Ruth, you really aren’t a music snob! You’re listening to Michael Bublé without cringing”! Then as hours and days passed, like a starving child, I began to long for songs that would have made me wince in pain* if played days earlier. “Thank God! Carrie Underwood!” or, “finally! Something insightful. Thanks for that, Lady Gaga”.  No longer could I recall the beauty and complexity of Arcade Fire or Kurt Vile, but became so desensitized by the unsophisticated nature of “the Blend” that an hour long playlist of Taylor Swift’s all time favorite songs ended up being the highlight of my day. And don’t even get me started on the fit of excitement that ensued when Ace of Base guest hosted for an hour. It felt like an epic liberation worthy of infinite praise, an experience that I honestly still do cherish.

So I was getting my last few hours completed at the Goodwill, hanging up clothes and organizing picture frames in a zombie-like behavior. Then, as I absently looked at my watch, I realized I was done! I got my forms signed and everything, and I called a cab to come get me. Still suffering from the kind of drowsy, seemingly sedated state of mind, for which the torturous “blend” songs I blame, I entered the cab as it arrived. I attempted to small talk with the driver, but I’m fairly certain I failed because awkward silence smothered the both of us for the better part of the ride. However, in my defense, Zombies can’t really small talk.

We stop for gas on the way back, and all of a sudden, my ears begin to perk up. Much like an undomesticated caveman finally experiencing civilization, I barbarically push my head further to front of the car to discover what I’m hearing. It was like nothing I’d ever heard before…except I had heard it, what felt like ages ago. It was a Radiohead song. It seemed so foreign to me at the time, but I eventually began to realize that it was a song I used to love. But did I still love it? Or had my madness transferred this love to the artists of “the Blend”? A little confused and sleep-deprived at this point, I began to remember the life I had left behind for the Goodwill. All the marvelous, intricate, and diverse songs waiting patiently in my iTunes library for me to come back and play. At last, the world regained its color! My mind began to expand to its normal, slightly above average size, and I was FINALLY FREE!

I can't even imagine what prisons like.

Insanity: the state of being seriously mentally ill; madness

- New Oxford American Dictionary

*I am super dramatic and annoying about listening to music I don't like. The pain seems real, but it probably isn't