Generation iPod

I was in the City this weekend and I was on the train, minding my own business, listening to my iPod. I'm sitting there just kind of moving to the beat and wondering if anyone else can hear my music at all because I realized it was so loud. But I was on the train and the train is loud so why not pump up the music? As I looked around I realized that probably no one could hear me because they were all listening to their own iPods. Everyone has got one these days!

I guess I had been mildly aware of this fact before, but it never hit me just how many iPods have been sold. Apple really does have an empire. But I got to thinking, what are those people actually listening to? It seems you can come up with a lot of clues to a person's musical tastes just by looking at them. There was a man sitting across from me, well-dressed, probably in his mid- to late-forties. He wasn't in a suit, but rather more business casual. But since it was Friday it's likely that he does work in a professional place - business casual is probably his equivalent to my dress-down-in-jeans Friday. Before he put on his iPod he was holding his ears, for what looked like dear life. Sure, the train was passing a screeching point in the tunnel but I hardly think it was reason to hold your ears like a five-year-old. In any case, in the time that I perused the rest of the car for more iPod victims, I guess he realized that playing loud music would be better. He had put one on himself! He began tapping his foot to the beat (and though I don't know exactly what he was listening to, I'm pretty sure he had no rhythm!). I'd have to peg him as a classical music listener.

But don't judge a book by its cover either. Suddenly, the doors opened at City Hall and this tall, lanky teen got on. He had longer blonde hair and was wearing cargo pants with a long-sleeved thermal shirt underneath his short-sleeved polo. Of course he had his iPod in hand, and at first I thought it was pink - it turned out to be red (so he was probably supporting the RED campaign). In any case, I immediately pegged him as the California-surfer stereotype. He was probably listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers or maybe Weezer. And just as I thought I had him all figured out, he pulled a CD out of his Virgin Megastore bag. Tiziano Ferro. Now, I'll admit, I had never heard of this guy. But from my worldly experience I could tell that he was an Italian singer of some sort. When I looked him up on Amazon, he was indeed an Italian pop singer. So what could he have been listening to? Maybe some Josh Groban? I don't even know.

And just as I changed my mind and decided he was an international Swiss student studying abroad, he pulled out the Family Guy DVDs. Kid's got lots of interests...