Poagao's Journal

Absolutely Not Your Monkey

Oct 03 2003

Considering the current availability of songs and …

Considering the current availability of songs and sounds on the Internet, I wonder if it would be practical to overlay familiar sounds to familiar songs. You know how certain songs remind you of a certain time and place, a moment you’d probably otherwise have long forgotten? But it’s still missing a certain something. Technology has yet to accomplish a machine that will manufacture the unique smells to recall the red ’65 Corvair Monza convertable my dad restored when we were living in Colorado to go along with the song “Downtown”, which I remember playing on the chrome-covered radio as we jaunted top-down about various sunny Denver suburbs. But what about background noises? For me, the 80’s song “Desert Moon” is not quite complete without the addition of school bus sounds, as that is where I first heard it, over and over, throughout my sophomore year of high school, so I can only imagine adding those noises (and possibly a burgundy “Members Only” jacket) would bring back even more memories of sitting on those evenly padded green seats, staring at the facinating Vietnamese kid who lived a few blocks away and always wore sunglasses. He was 19, which seemed so old to me then.

“Black Velveteen” by Lenny Kravitz would need the sounds of the ocean, jets flying overhead, and blonde people rollerblading to properly bring back the feeling of walking along Redondo Beach to Manhattan beach in LA in the late afternoon. “Carmelia” by some 80’s singer would need Taiwanese dorm noises, including guys slurping instant noodles and cicadas circa 1988. “That’s all” by Phil Collins would need the sound of a racing inline 6 from the Datsun 810 I drove in high school, while “The Brazilian” would go with several Filipinas chattering in Tagalog in a Hong Kong slum. Certain Baroque trumpet pieces could do with the faint thumping bass of lowriders who drive around certain areas of Brooklyn where I was staying in ’99.

Anyway, you get the picture. Such personal mixes of songs could work, but the background noises would be more effective if they changed with every playing, using random samples. At least until we get that smell machine working.

posted by Poagao at 3:28 am  

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