aural smog

In an essay in his book Songbook, Nick Hornby comments on one of the differences between pop music of yesterday and today. When we were teens, istening to music, we had to find just that right FM radio station, or purchase vinyl lps and listen in on the stereos in our bedrooms. Today the music is everywhere. He calls it "a sort of aural smog." What a perfect term.

I don't like smog. Even this aural somg, as Hornby calls it. As I have written before, I am filled with music of my own. I don't need everyone else's music interferring with mine.

Is it because the ability to play music anywhere and everywhere is easier that people do so? Or is it a lack of respect that people have today for their neighbors? Which is the initiator?

I still yell at my kids, as my father yelled at me, "Turn that down! The neighbors don't want to hear you!" But do the neighbors feel the same way? Instead of turning their music down, would they more likely turn theirs up?

And the aural smog is not just radios and cds and ipods. It's cell phone ring tones and phone conversations and the green cloud of foul language that has somehow become more acceptable in everyday conversation.