Thanks Soundhound! *wink*

In some ways, I would like to blame my lack of knowledge about pop songs on the fact that at 25 years old, I am ancient.


Leave the young people's music to the young people! You should be mortified if over the age of say, twenty years old, you consider yourself a Demi Lovato fan. And if you are afflicted with Bieber-fever over the age of seventeen, then I think you have some other afflictions that perhaps you should address through therapy.


That being said, when I was twenty and when I was seventeen, although I could probably have named the largest pop stars of the day (as I can today, sometimes!), I had a difficulty identifying their songs, and as a general rule of thumb, found most of their music to be just a mush of indistinguishable synth-mush. (Exceptions include... Justin Timberlake... and yeah... Justin Timberlake!)


What I am trying to explain is that I by no means lived under a rock, and I certainly think that I am pretty okay with pop culture, but I never was interested in mainstream pop music, regardless of its age-appropriateness for me. If that makes me sound like a pretentious turd, then there you have it. I didn't like it much, I still don't. When I was ten, I didn't fall in love with Hanson. When I was twelve, I thought the Backstreet Boys were shit. I can't even remember what was popular in my high school (it certainly wasn't me! haha, I'm so funny and self-deprecating!) - but I feel like Vitamin C's Graduation Song had it's moment in the sun and I certainly wasn't putting my ears through that sweet hell.


I think there is talent in the genre (as can be found in every genre!) but I've never had any interest in delving in deep and finding out.


I'm certainly not going to start delving now as an old woman.


I have been able throughout my life to successfully avoid having to listen to Top 40. I don't listen to the radio except in car rides with my father where it is turned firmly to classic rock stations. And I am not comfortable in clubs. So where would I encounter it? They pump in pop at malls, so when I worked in one, I learned how to block most of it out as much as possible. What pop music I couldn't block out, I found very... annoying.


At my current job, I went over a year without having to be constantly annoyed by the music playing. E-Dawg and I found an iTunes radio station called "Radio Vintage" (said in a robotic voice) that was just fine and perfectly retail appropriate until around 12-2pm every day when they start playing Rage Against the Machine and one of us would have to subtly mute the computer lest the invariably elderly person in the store think we wanted to kill in the name of things. It was fine! Then Jess started to work at my store.


I like Jess. She's funny and friendly and good at her job. But Jess loves pop music. Loves it.


I understand that Top 40 crap is supposed to be neutral ground. I get it, and ultimately, I understand. It does make more sense to have a generic radio censored Black Eyed Peas'* song playing quietly at a store than it does to walk in on your sales clerk singing her heart out at Carry on My Wayward Son**. I also don't want to scare off a new co-worker with some sort of "What is this noise-pollution tripe!? Turn it off!" rant, when my tastes are admittedly in the minority.


Now I am stuck daily (at least during the shifts when I'm not working alone) listening to The Hits of Today! And I regularly want to stick pens deep inside my ear drums. The worst thing is that because I a) am over the hill and b) didn't recognize this sort of thing even when I was on the hill - I can't even articulate who it is on the radio that I am so aggravatingly annoyed with.


That's where my Soundhound app on my phone comes in. It's a great little thing that listens to whatever you're listening to and using wizard magic, tells you the name of the song and who it is by. I use it every chance that I get because it's really fun, but also helpful at NAMING NAMES.


Here is what I've forced my phone to listen to against its will (why should I be the only one to suffer, Galaxy S Fascinate?), my Soundhound history:


Neon Trees - Animal
Pitbull - I Like It.
Pitbull - Hey Baby (Drop it to the Floor)
Britney Spears - I Wanna Go
Selena Gomez & the Scene - Who Says
Cobra Starship ft. Sabi - You Make Me Feel.
Kelly Rowland ft. Lil' Wayne - Motivation


These are just the songs that were playing on the rare occasions when I could hear the radio and was near my phone in the back room. Out front, I was helpless (lest I awkwardly lean over Jess and look at iTunes on the computer she was using - the one with speakers) to learn who sings that insufferable "Love You Like a Love Song Baby" song.


Since I don't know who else to blame, based on what Soundhound would tell me, I am blaming Pitbull.




*I wrote "Pears" there. 
** What? No, never happened to me. No sir.