Behind the Picket Fence: Pop Angst

So, I’ve been listening to the radio. In the shower. I spend a whole 30 minutes a day listening to the radio while I’m washing and drying and such, and today, I did some thinking.

I am of course obliged to listen to the most cheesy, uninventive, dancing-in-place-able music on the air while showering, as we all are. Over time, in my 30 minutes a day, I’ve learned a few things about the general direction pop music is taking. One is that there are only 10 songs on the air. One of these songs is on special “Esmee-is-showering” rotation, which means that it must play at least once, maybe twice, during my shower. This song used to be a Britney Spears song. Then the post-punk/ska/pop invasion came around. Over the summer, one particular extremely forgettable post-punk/ska/pop song played during every single one of my showers and I decided to begin a challenge. I changed my very rigid shower schedule from evening to morning, altering my entire internal clock in the process, and the song followed. So I naturally became convinced that I controlled what times the song was played, and showered in the middle of the day a few times just to confirm this. This is when I realized that the real reason that the song was following me was because it was played every five songs. Turns out, the length of a shower is the perfect amount of time to sample almost all of the pop songs on the air at any given time. Five songs are played, the “Esmee-is-showering” song plays, and several more songs round out the shower. You don’t repeat but you get to hear almost everything on the air.

My last shower was a very thoughtful experience, After listening to the 5 songs and my special “Esmee-is-showering” song, a serious question hit me: “What are parents in the suburbs thinking? Seriously?” If there is one thing a listen to the radio will teach you today, it’s this: kids in the ‘burbs are ANGRY. For no substantial reason. Just out of boredom. Song after song after song about suburban angst was played as I lathered, all of them indistinguishable and all of them lamenting the tedium and ennui, if you will, of growing up in behind the picket fence.


It made me jaded. It made be annoyed. It made me angry. It made me glad I didn’t go to a high school with a campus and an extremely popular football team. Life in the suburbs is dull and my shower is suffering because of it! And here is the most important question: How can parents not understand this? Suburban parents were bored suburban kids at one point. And then they moved out of the suburbs, and their lives didn’t suck anymore. And then they decided the responsible thing to do would be to raise a family outside the city, and they moved away again. And now they are bored adults in the suburbs, and maybe they aren’t doing as many drugs as their kids, and they definately aren’t playing in pop/punk bands, but today’s topic Oprah was (this is so crazy that I was justified in watching…): “The secret world of sex in the suburbs.” Yes, women are having affairs, big news. Nobody watched that part of the show. At precisely 4:33, Oprah mentioned the word “swingers.” Apparently you might have one living next door. And who are they?…suburban parents (3,00,000 of them!) who go to “swinger” clubs and do all sorts of crazy naked things with strangers. Republican, Christian, conservative suburban parents. The kind of people that support prayer in school. And so the question is: are the ‘burbs really that healthy for the parents either? Why did you all move there? And why do people keep asking me “What’s it like to grow up with in a city with no backyard? That must be weird,” when they’re the ones whose parents are having sex on a dance floor with a total stranger while other parents watch. Because if it’s popular enough to be on Oprah, it’s a happening in middle-America.

It’s time to take a stand against white middle-class suburban angst. If only because it’s ruining my shower (code for: ruining my 30 minutes of secret guilt-free pop-music listening).
-Esmee