Monday, March 03, 2008

Office Tunes

When I landed my current job, I thought it would be cool to have a little iPod speaker thing to enjoy some music as I sat in my cube all day long. I bought this tiny little iHome, single speaker thing for $50 and deemed it a wise investment, as I would not go insane at work with some smooth jams calming me. However, this iHome thing apparently only has 2 volumes: Loud and Super-Loud. Putting it on Vol 1 with music mastered with the current high levels is really too loud to play in an office setting, and I've tried various ways to lower the apparent level, from wrapping the player in blankets to my current set up: surrounded by a sweater, with a 3M Post-it Note pack taped to the speaker front, with a thick book in front of that. That lowers the level enough that I can listen to a very select number of artists on my iPod without feeling like a total douchebag for the volume being too loud. Mainly, these are classical artists and things recorded before 1990. Here are my office jams:

Avro Part
The Band
Brian Eno
Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska
The Clash
Debussy
The Faces
Fleetwood Mac
Husker Du
Iron Maiden
John Fahey
Kate Bush
The Mercury Program
The Microphones
Pixies
Red House Painters
Talking Heads
Tindersticks
XTC

repeat ad nausem.

-ed