I set my alarm clock radio on a station that plays innocuous music that I never recognize, so it never sticks in my head and bothers me. I can never identify the song or even the artist... it's just loud enough to wake me, but beyond that, I'm home free.
The real challenge is when I arrive at my workplace, a store where the management pumps the vilest modern pop crap via satellite radio into the establishment. And it plays havoc with our (us, the monkeys who toil on the salesfloor) poor ears and brains. I mean, if it were a bigger mix of music with more turnover on the playlist, it wouldn't be that big a deal. But hearing the same short set of tracks several times a shift... every single day... for many months. Well, that's just crazy. Bordering on CIA waterboarding-type tactics. Yeah, one of these days, one of us is gonna snap.
I've always been such a music fan that I have hours (no, days or even weeks) of music in my memory that I can play in my head whole songs and albums... even the entire catalogues of favourite artists. My internal music station isn't always able to drown out the store's teeth-grinding audio, but I do my best to tune out the drivel from the surrounding speakers and keep my own favourite songs going inside my skull. Occasionally, I have the ability to run whole albums or at least album sides... like the twenty minute 2112 suite by Rush, or if I'm lucky, the entire 2112 album.
More often than not, despite my best efforts, I am besieged by the tinny, screeching racket that is forced on us. Those poor excuses for music can get lodged in my grey matter and I find myself humming unwanted mindless melodies.
Then there are the songs stuck in my head that I don't mind so much. These are almost never from the store's satellite playlist, though. They might just pop up from my subconscious, buried there after a few hours or days, or several years. As long as I like them, I don't worry about the repetition so much. A little annoying maybe, but I can live with them. And this is the music I'd like to document here today... welcome tunes that stick in my head for hours and even days are:
Radar Rider, by Riggs... a very strange thing to come up, but hey, it's catchy as hell. I have always known the song from the soundtrack of the 1981 animated movie Heavy Metal. A seriously catchy heavy song by a rather obscure and even under-rated band.
Bon Appetit, by Katy Perry... frowned upon by some of my peers, this 2018 light electronica ditty frequently worms its way into my mind-grapes and settles in for a nice long stay. Yet I never tire of it. Some pop, done just so, like this, appeals to me.
Invader, by Judas Priest... a metal gem off the '78 Stained Class album. Among my fave Priest songs, I can keep this running on a loop all day long sometimes. Not quite as refined and technical as the band's 80's output, oldies like this possess a charm all their own.
The Conjuring, by Megadeth... just one of the 80's thrash metal classics off side one of Peace Sells, it's my top choice off the album and is easily among my all-time faves from the band. The whole side one sometimes gets a spin on my mental turntable... Wake Up Dead, The Conjuring, Peace Sells, and Devil's Island.
House of Pain, by Van Halen... oddly, I gave this song a miss many times back in the day, while cranking my 1984 cassette tape and later, the CD. I've been known to spin the entire album at times (Friday afternoons at work, watching that clock tick toward Miller Time) on my private radio station. But when I finally "got" this song, I couldn't get enough of it. A heavy and menacing track, not nearly as bright and carefree as the rest of the album.
Nightrain, by Guns'n'Roses... not exactly my favourite - musically - off that infamous debut album, yet the lyrics are just so evocative and "street" that they are fun to recall and cycle around the noggin. I sometimes struggle with the words and get them out of order, but that's half the fun... even just recite a few lines to entertain co-workers.
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