Opinion
Theft prevents music review
March 23, 2007
I want to take a moment to discuss something a little more serious than a compact disc. It’s not just to inform you about the newest band or crappy album so you can talk about it with your friends the next day in class. The music you listen to builds personal character. As much as people hate to admit it because it sounds shallow, we are defined by our interests. As John Cusack says in the movie “High Fidelity,” “It’s not what you’re like, it’s what you like.”
Music can help us define how we’re feeling when we can’t find our own words or bring meaning to something that happens to us in our daily lives. As I write this column, I hope you take the information and apply it to your own lives to grow and change.
I can’t help expand your personalities and minds this week because the album I was planning to inform you about was on my iPod. My iPod was stolen out of my dorm room. I take full responsibility for the fact that I left my room unlocked to run to the bathroom, but I am personally offended that in place of the stolen property the assailants left payment: four quarters and a nickel. Apparently to them, a music collection is only worth a dollar and five cents. How sad.
Without my music collection at my continuous disposal, I feel a bit lost. There has been a little less color in my life without its soundtrack. Even if you don’t own an iPod, I hope you can appreciate how important someone’s passion and property means to them. That $300 piece of plastic with two red stickered jewels on it (in case you see it) can be replaced, but the weeks without music cannot. Although it may seem at first that I am the only one affected by this petty theft, this week you all have suffered. An entire week’s worth of (hopefully) comical and insightful musical information was robbed from you.
I hope that we can all learn a something from this. I will make sure to lock my door even to walk the 20 feet to the drinking fountain. And you should all start reinforcing yours. Keep backup CDs or files of every mp3 or wav file you have! We never realize how important something is until it’s gone, especially the intangibles. Music can be held in your hand, but how music makes us feel cannot be touched.
Jenna Lee is a student at UW-River Falls.