The laws of nature and the physiological structure of the human body require that students eat at some point during the day, sometimes even at multiple points. I’m pretty lucky that I live on and have all of my classes on College Ave, but that means that I eat almost every single meal at the soul-crushing establishment known as Brower Commons. Brower has an inordinate amount of power, wielding complete control over not just the food that I begrudging allow to be used as fuel for my body, but also the atmosphere of a place where I spend a fair amount of my time. It’s already at a disadvantage because the experience of walking into Brower can only be described as descending into an underground brick prison. However, the music that blasts through the building, completely shattering any thread of conversation, is somehow both physically and spiritually more disturbing than the dining hall itself.
I recorded every single song that played in Brower for two days during the time I spent there eating lunch and dinner. Although the type of music varies, sometimes shifting genres from one extreme to another, I somehow only caught the 90s pop and classic rock playlists. After careful scrutiny, I ranked my top 5 out of the 29 songs I heard:
- “Faithful” by Go West
“Faithful” is not a song; it’s an experience. I know exactly where I am when I’m
listening to it. I’m in a movie montage either at Sea World or some other family-friendly
amusement park, and there’s at least one encounter (maybe two!) with a cute animal.
No one can tell me otherwise. The friend I was sitting with said that he heard them
singing “painful” instead of “faithful,” but I knew better because the choir singing in the
background of the chorus suggested a clever double meaning of belief in God and
loyalty to the singer’s lover, who I imagine must have been deaf to put up with his voice.
- “Bitch” by Meredith Brooks
Not to be dismissive, but Meredith Brooks is a pretty typical angry female
singer-songwriter. Why, then, did I include her on this list? Well, because she’s a bitch
and a lover and a child and a mother and a sinner and a saint and your hell and your
dream and nothing in between and an angel underneath and innocent and sweet and a
little bit of everything rolled into one. When I have to describe myself, I’m lucky if I can
think of more than a few words, and they always end up being synonyms of each other.
Meredith knows exactly who she is, and I admire that. The reason she doesn’t
rank higher, though, is because this past week Islam Awareness Week festivities were
held right outside of Brower, and it felt really awful to still be quoting “I’m a bitch, I’m a
tease/I’m a goddess on my knees.” I may never forgive myself.
- “Run Away” by Real McCoy
I’ve never heard someone say that their favorite genre of music is eurodance. This
song though, is a cut above the average terrible eurodance song because for some
reason it’s actually about 1984. There would be no way of knowing this
unless, like me, you were so confused about why someone thought this song was
allowed to exist that you immediately looked it up on Wikipedia. There’s also a ridiculous contrast between the upbeat female singer pleading that you “run away, run away, run
away and save your life” and the extremely serious and absolutely terrifying male singer
muttering about something I can only imagine the writers believed was meaningful.
- “I Wanna B With U” by Fun Factory
Are we on the beach? No, we’re in the Fun Factory where there is absolutely nothing
of substance. There are no notable lyrics in this song, only the feeling that everything
in the world is slightly off and nothing will ever be right again. Thank goodness the best
sound quality available of this song is on a grainy YouTube video because if I had to
listen to a version with quality any higher my ears might fall off in protest. There are no
transitions throughout the song, only the overarching feeling of despair.
- “Do Me!” by Bell Biv DeVoe
If you can’t tell from the title, “Do Me!” is about very enthusiastic sex. Not just sex,
though—sex with an underage fan at a concert. I’m not interpreting anything: “Would
you mind if I look at you for a moment/Before I make sweet love/Backstage, under age,
adolescent.” Why Brower thought this was an appropriate song is absolutely beyond me.
They played this not once, but twice in the two days that I was there. I felt uncomfortable
the entire time it was playing, especially because the lead singer decided it wasn’t
incredibly disturbing to layer sexual noises over the entire song, including the moans of
the underage girl. I really would prefer if I wasn’t forced to listen to the actual act of
statutory rape over lunch; the food is vomit-inducing enough.
For a full list of songs played at Brower, including the songs mentioned above, check out this handy-dandy playlist: https://open.spotify.com/user/122966883/playlist/5ItPo6YGbDZluWs3Qu1i48
“I Wanna B With U” isn’t on Spotify, but it’s definitely worth a listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7kyWv8DrBQ
Alex Arbeitel