January 20, 2006

• Spot on, jccalhoun! I've also noticed that people who insist on turning up their music full blast while in their cars have crappy taste in music. And usually, it's music that isn't meant to be played that loud (ie. boring "baby-making" music), which further enhances the crappiness of it all. There must be a name for this phenomenon!
• It only happened one time that I had neighbours with great taste in music -- camping, a couple of years ago. I'm unloading the car, and what comes drifting over from the next site? The Cramps. Followed by old Iggy. Nice. Very nice. But not at all condusive to that whole getting-back-to-nature thing. So like a true Doukohobor, I protested by walking around naked the whole time. Really got back to nature. No more Lux Interior. (Just kidding. I'm not a Doukobor.)
• One presumes that if it were music that was acceptable to you, you wouldn't notice it. *cranks up the Anonymous 4*
• I am guessing that you typically live next to people who are not your age (this you can control), or you like things that are not the most popular current music (much harder to control).
• Fish! I'm listening to Anonymous 4 as we speak!!! My thoughts are: if it's playing loudly enough so the neighbors can tell whether it's crappy or not, then it is excessively loud!
• Depending on the quality of one's shanty, of course.
• I empathize, jccalhoun. Quite often I am subjected to that which I have no desire to hear coming from my neighbor(s). Interestingly enough, I have noticed at least one benefit from having thin walls. I lived next to a couple who fought loudly about two nights a week. They would sometimes yell for hours. One night, ms. steamboat cued up a soothing Sigur Ros tune, speakers pointed at the wall and ceiling. To our delight, they soon calmed down. We used that approach for the remainder of the time we lived there.
• My neighbors have shitty taste in decor, too, from what I can see peering through the windows.
• *whips curtains shut*
• The Volume: 11 The Duration: 8 hours. The Apartment: Directly below mine. The Song: Nazareth's cover of "Love Hurts", looped.
• I play the drums and have a huge drumkit, so I hope my neighbors like John Bonham, cause that's what they get.
• That Nazareth thing is hilarious.
• My neighbor teaches piano. The kids come an plink on the thing in the evenings, just 20 feet from my head.
• Huge drumkit, huh? Is that cymbalic?
• It's big, baby.
• *executes a perfect inward single paradiddle*
• A post to alt.usage.english about neighbours' music.
• My problem isn't the neighbours, it's the crappy taste in TV the rest of the family has.
• You can hear it? That must suck. I can only feel the music from downstairs. If I don't keep my monitor centered on my desk, it vibrates off. It's been a great way to keep my desk clean. (mumble, mumble.) On a slightly more serious not...er, comment, since we're all about avoiding notes here, I think it's the bass, if that's the problem. Carries more than treble. If it's treble, maybe upper register hearing loss. Or it's covering the suspicious activities that your neighbor across the way is performing. Oh, wait, that's me again.
• When I was much younger, my friend Grant and I were partying at someones house that we didn't know. This unknown person had a stereo in a locked cabinet that at the time was unlocked with the key. He put Neil Young's 1972 CD "Harvest" with "Heart of Gold" on repeat, locked up the cabinet and threw away the key. Hilarity ensued.
• don't get me started on the terrible things i've learned about my neighbours by trawling through their trash. bad taste in food, bad taste in reading material, bad taste in pornography, you name it! perhaps i've said too much already
• Neighbors Always Have Horrible Taste You're not cooking them right.
• I only noticed the neighbor's music because I didn't have my own tv or radio on at the time, so it hasn't been a big deal as far as the volume is concerned. It was just as in was in bathroom, I could distinctly hear Shakira coming from upstairs. If it ever becomes a problem, as a hardcore gamer I have a nice set of kliptch computer speakers that I can turn up and start playing a First-Person Shooter. I'm sure the sound of machine gun fire and exploding bombs would be more irritating to them than any crappy music is to me!
• I once lived in a *fabulous* apartment below my gay landlord's place. He broke up with his boyfriend. Two weeks of Cher asking whether I believed in life after love followed.
• I have always been the noisiest person in my building. This was quite some time ago but when my downstairs neighbor moved out she left a broom and a witches hat at my door. Still got the broom. Works great. Playlist at the time: P.I.L. Kate Bush The Raincoats Talking Heads/David Byrne/Catherine Wheel Young Marble Giants Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy- Brian Eno. Pere Ubu I just figured she was tasteless, neurotic and ordinary. Or do I owe her an apology?
• For Kate Bush, yes!!!
• *squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek*
• My neighbors across the alley used to wander around in the nude with their curtains open. It would have been ok if they'd been remotely attractive. Actually, no it wouldn't have. Because they were horrible, too.
• Previous upstairs neighbour, karaoke session every afternoon, for about four hours. Nostalgic Mandarin and Cantonese songs. I've yet to hear her hit a right note. But I suspect I might be the source of lousy music for other people. 2am in the morning, Frank Sinatra or Sammy Davis Jr, or West End musicals, or anime soundtracks. And lately, Darren Hayes.
• Wow. Must be nice to have such excellent taste in music. Too bad we all can't be so lucky. Seriously, its a such a subjective thing. Obviously your series of neighbours have had different taste in music, which isn't the same thing as terrible. I think bernockle likely nailed it, though. It seems likley that your tastes aren't very mainstream, or else you tend to live in areas that have have a different demographic from your own.
• How funny. During the summer, I frequently open up my slider door and my loudish music tends to filter out. I always (delusionally) think, "I bet my neighbors are thankful I have such good taste in music."
• My taste is beter than yours. Bus at 11.
• OK, that was a beta version of that comment.
• Hmmm. I get a little suspicious when someone says something like, 'Every single person of class X has terrible taste in thing Y.' After all, you're the common denominator in the equation - maybe it's your taste in music that bites? For some reason this reminds me of my sister, who's had her house broken into 3 or 4 times, and for some reason they only steal her CDs, and then only some of her collection. Her take was, 'At least I obviously have some good taste in music.' My take was, 'Bet you a hundred bucks its one of your neighbors who's finally sick beyond rational thought at the idea of listening to The Kentucky Banjo Quartet Does Metallica again.'
• "Hmmm. I get a little suspicious when someone says something like, 'Every single person of class X has terrible taste in thing Y.' After all, you're the common denominator in the equation - maybe it's your taste in music that bites?" Or maybe the vast majority of people listen to mindless drivel - millions of country albums are sold every year. While my tastes may be very specific, the albums that sell zillions attest to the fact that most people are happy to listen to whatever shit is being marketed heavily at that moment. I believe the word I'm searching for is "cattle".
• Hmmmm...your sister's had her house broken into 3 or 4 times, you say, planetthoughtful ? Well... One thing's for sure. She has terrible taste in LOCKS.
• I like to listen to music REALLY loud. As such, I normally use headphones unless I'm cleaning or something. But then again, I own the building I live in, so it's not like anyone can complain. SUCKERS!!!
• As for the car, I only blast music while moving at a fairly decent clip. I figure that way, if you don't like the music, you only get to hear it for a few seconds. If I'm at a red light or in heavy traffic, I'll roll up the windows, and turn it down a bit.
• Had an incident with the 30-something single woman below me some years ago when I was woken at 3am by her and her friends singing along to Rod Stewart's more maudlin love songs. A rational and mature exchange of views followed. I immediqtely bought 'God Save The Queen' by the Sex Pistols and played it loud. There were no more early hours loud music crises from below III I guess the tacit understanding that any disturbances from below would be parried by a large blast of 'Bodies' was enough to deter her ...
• Can you hear emergency vehicles' sirens over it, Debaser? I always worry about that when I hear folks driving with loud music.
• Never gave it much thought Underpants... something to consider. I've never had a close call with a emergency vehicle, but that is probably opportunity/luck more than anything... something to keep in mind, though. I'd hate to be on the business end of a fire truck, and furthermore, delay help from getting to its destination.
• Of course your neighbors have horrible taste. That's why they're called "neighbors". Otherwise they'd be "friends who live nearby".
• Geez, jccalhoun, it's too bad I'm not your neighbor 'cause I have, literally, perfect taste in music. Maybe in another lifetime.;>
• I'm'a move in next door to fish tick and the underpants monster. I can't stand my neighbors, primarily because they're noisy in the middle of the night. I rarely hear their music. The times I have heard it, I've neither enjoyed nor loathed it - very middlebrow, some country. Recently one of the neighbors had a fight (around 4-5AM, partly just below my bedroom window) with his live-in girlfriend, and she moved out. For several days, someone's cds were left out on the front porch, his or hers, I don't know. I thought they might be getting rid of them, so I looked at what was there. I was amazed to see that I had almost every cd in both racks, and wanted a few of the ones that I didn't have. Granted, it wasn't the "cooler" end of my collection, but there was a large amount of overlap. =/
• My take was, 'Bet you a hundred bucks its one of your neighbors who's finally sick beyond rational thought at the idea of listening to The Kentucky Banjo Quartet Does Metallica again.' -- planetthoughtful Holy shit. I have been looking for that cd for over three years. If you can hook me up with that, I will be eternally grateful.
• I never curse the neighbors they're fine as far as I can see because they have the good taste to live next to me
• Life is crap now that the super moved into the apartment next door. The succession of crackheads allowed me a lot more leeway in terms of how loud I could play my excellent record collection, but I have to admit -- the risk of fire and theft has gone down.
• ...the barrage of "Copacabana," "Could It Be Magic" and "Que Sera Sera," blasting from 9 p.m. to midnight every Friday, Saturday and Sunday is driving them crazy
• Earplugs.
• Earplugs, stat. Ballot box second. Stuff it if necessary. If these don't have the desired effect: resort to the fire and the sword.
• Sounds like the local police are too lazy too auctully do some police work. I live in an old house and am not usually very loud but when a new tennant moved in downstairs she complained of the bass going through the floor. I have a tendency to play games late at night. I solved the problem by putting my subwoofers on shelves on the wall. It cuts down on the quality of the bass but keeps the neighbor from being annoyed. The ones that really annoy me are those people who do the drive by sonic assaults. I figure karma will take its revenge upon them by making them deaf by the time they're my age.
• drive by sonic assaults It never fails in my neighborhood: the daily drive-by sonic assault that sets off every car alarm within an ear shot. *stuffs ears with wax plugs* *cues Merzbow*