Why are they so popular?

I have two bad memories of music from my college days.

(um, you're not one to talk about bad music, Mr. I-own-a-Jamiroqui-CD! -ed.)

Well, it's not about my music - it's about being tortured by music played endlessly by my suitemates.



The first bad experince is with the Cure. I had a suitemate freshmn year that played the Cure over.....and over.... and over again. He played it when he was alone, he played it when the hot-but-unattainable Joelle DiCarlo came over to his room......(but they weren't doing anything. He may have been bisexual, and was asked out by a chinese homosexual later that year. Anyway....)



(are you going to tell your Joelle-and-Steve story? -ed)



Well, alright. So Steve - my college golfing friend, if people don't know (along with Kermit) - knew Joelle, and when I mentioned to him that she lived in my dorm, Steve suddenly found many reasons to drive over to my room from north side.



Anyway, I asked him to come over one day and take me to the liquor store, as we were hosting a party and it was illegal - ILLEGAL, I say - for this 19 year old to buy the booze. So Steve shows up, parks his car right underneath Joelle's window.



As fate would have it, we get ready to leave the dorm and Joelle pops out of her window like Rapunzel. "Hi Steve!" she says. Steve almost melts.



We get in the car to drive to Cleveland Heights - and get pulled over. The officer comes up to the car, tells Steve how fast he was going - and then notices that Steve forgot to put on his seat belt on... another $25 added to the fine.



Steve still blames Joelle for that ticket (although he blames me more for making him run out for the booze).



Anyway, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, the Cure. He played the albums about 18 hours a day. By the 2nd week, I knew all the lyrics to "Friday I'm In Love", "Pictures of You", and "Fascination Street". And I was instantly depressed just listening to that album.



God, it's taken me about 15 years to restrain myself from punching the radio whenever the the Cure came on. I actually kind of like them now...15 years too late.

Anyway, the 2nd scarring musical experience came a year later. We moved up two floors and had an open room - which was filled by a junior from the Netherlands, Johannes Van Der Putten. He hung around with another one of our suitemates,a junior as well.

Now, Johannes was starting to experience American rock music - and for whatever reason, he became fascinated with the Scorpions. Every day, after classes, he'd blare that album that was popular (I guess) in the early 90s:

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the Wind
Of Change....

Argh! Make it stop! I never experienced a true American follow the Scorpions - it was only Johannes and some of his foriegn friends. Why was this band so popularamong foreigners but it was never played on WMMS?

Fast forward 16 years..... we (there are 5 of us at the hotel here in Bangkok) are being driven to the plant by a driver. I am the only American and the other 4 P&Gers are from Asia and speak some, but not a lot, of English. So it is pretty silent in the car.

The driver - who speaks zero English - pops in a CD....

I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park....


Chuay! Raa siang pleng!

What the hell is the obsession that the foreigners have with the Scorpions???\