Supercrap

I'm deeply disturbed by something, and I need to gripe about it: it seems that one of the worst music groups of the entire half-century of the pop/rock era is popular again. I'm talking about Supertramp. I keep hearing them on that damn TD Banknorth commercial that runs nearly every morning on New England Cable News. Blessedly, the name of the specific song in question escapes me, and I'm not about to make any effort to find it out, so you'll have to take my word for it. And if you know, don't tell me--I really don't want to know.

Typically I mute the TV when commercials come on, but I watch a little NECN in the mornings while having breakfast, then I leave the room to get dressed, and the commercial always seems to come on when I'm out of the room. By the time I can make it back to the TV, the song has already triggered that alcove of my brain that stores memories of songs, and it's too late: even though it's been three decades since its inexplicable popularity, it's lodged in there until I can get out the door, get my headphones on, and force it out with something else.

Then the other day I was in a store, minding my business doing an errand, when another song of theirs came on. I felt trapped. I felt queasy. I wanted to run away without buying my shampoo. I know that retailers pay a lot of money to companies to select the music that gets played in their stores, and that makes me think: really? This is the best you could come up with? The soulless, musically bankrupt, late 70's analogue of the Dave Matthews Band? I was only in junior high back then, and I didn't like it the first time.

I know whose fault it is, too. I can pretty much guarantee that some baby boomer working at an ad agency or "branding consortium," someone probably a couple of years older than me, who lost his or her virginity in the back seat of a Duster (look it up, kids) a couple of hours after seeing a Supertramp concert, is responsible for this travesty being forced upon us. I don't care about your blissful memories of sexual awakening. Just stop it. Stop torturing us. I think I actually liked it better when everyone's songs weren't for sale, and we were forced to endure cheesy jingles.