Well, it's all come down to this. No fewer than six times, some young couple has decided that the entire school, nay, the entire island of Oahu needs to hear their musical selection. Naturally, I disagree with this stance for many reasons.
First, I should point out exactly how loudly they are playing this music. I live in the male dorms, in Hale 4. They live in the married couples dorms (it's an LDS college, that need actually exists) in Hale 2. They are across the street, and I can hear every lyric with crystal clarity through my own headphones. I can only imagine how torturous it is for their more direct neighbors.
I say that because I had the delight of learning that:
1) Our dormitory walls are extremely thin, so thin that just because you're singing along with something almost under your breath people can hear it.
2) Just because someone is not Japanese does not mean they do not speak Japanese.
3) Regardless of context, "Pantsu nugeru mon!" sounds wrong in baritone. It just sounds wroooong.
So I corrected that behavior. They have not, and unless the walls in Hale 2 are considerably thicker, their neighbors hate them. Absolutely hate them. Actually, "hate" is a strong word, which makes me glad I used it. I'm not sure how, where, or why they got such powerful speakers.
Anyway, my next point is about how awful their musical tastes are. As I said in my last rant, I don't have a problem with pop music in general; however, I have a problem with bad music, and they seem to have filtered out any tolerable chart-toppers from their playlist of choice. For example: in general, I like Bruno Mars. He's not really in my preferred musical style, but I believe him to be perhaps the most talented singer and one of the most talented musicians currently performing. He has incredible amounts of passion, his voice's timbre is a little weird in all the right ways, it's obvious he truly loves music and he loves making it, and, I'm not ashamed to say it, he's kind of hot. However, I absolutely despise "The Lazy Song". It's dull, it's unimaginative, it's annoying, and it's basically Bruno Mars cautiously avoiding anything he does well. I'll give you one guess which Bruno Mars song they're constantly playing.
At one point, I swear they picked the most annoying part of The Lazy Song and were playing it on an infinite A-B loop for about four minutes.
And that's not even their worst choice. I have heard "Eenie Meenie", "Tik Tok", "Party Rock Anthem", "Club Can't Even Handle Me Right Now", "Hey Soul Sister"--basically the entire Todd in the Shadows playlist, and then some.
So the first matter at hand is determining why they chose this awful, awful music. My current hypothesis is based on the fact that BYU-Hawaii is a very international campus, and a little over 50% of the students come from outside the US. I fear that someone utterly unfamiliar with American culture but desperately wanting to fit in listened to some American chart-toppers and thought, "This is awful, but I guess it's what they listen to." They picked the most awful songs, assuming them to be consequentially the most American, made them into a playlist, and began blasting them as loudly as possible, in order to fit the American custom of forcing our own opinions upon others. It's not the worst plan I've ever heard, but I feel I am a casualty of it.
Alternatively, perhaps they come from some backwater dystopia of which I've never heard which is modeled after that Footloose town, and they have never before been exposed to any sort of music. As soon as they heard music radio for the first time, perhaps Kiss FM or something, these were the first songs they ever heard, and they now hold some sentimental significance.
However, my next point of order and the main focus of this post is to determine how exactly to react. My first instinct is to wage unilateral and violent warfare against them. Do not mistake me for some bloodthirsty madman, but I would kind of like to kill them. I am a rational man. But they played "Eenie Meenie".
This would be rather difficult, considering I do not know their room number and there are bars around their windows, much as there are bars around everyone's. I'm not entirely sure why, presumably it's for precisely this reason.
My next plan would be to get a petition going to have them ejected from the university (and, if they are in fact from outside the US, perhaps from the country in the name of thoroughness). I am not the only person within earshot of their dorm. I've got all of Hale 2 and much of Hale 4 on my side, and perhaps more. The on-campus faculty housing is rather nearby as well. I reiterate, "Eenie Meenie".
Perhaps the least extreme and least effective method of retaliation would be to respond in kind. I have music. I have music that most people wouldn't like, least of all them. However, unless I make my intentions clear beforehand, this may lead to a vendetta against me as well, lead by some other righteous warrior of peace and quiet. I also lack any speakers powerful enough, having only my iPod and laptop, whose speakers are rather unreliable as it is.
For now, my best course of action is that of passivity: killing them. Signing off.
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