Quick warning here, Victoria’s Secret is giving away a free CD of new age music. It’s probably not something you want to listen to while driving.
First off, as a guy I’m not that entertained by underwear shopping. Some people may get some kind of kinky thrill from the satin and lace. Personally, I think context is everything. If it’s being worn by the right person, it’s great. If it’s sitting in a 50% off bin with a jumble of tags and anti-theft dongles, it’s a snoozefest.
Plus around here Victoria’s Secret means mall shopping. I don’t like the mall. Too many people exuding too much stress in an area that smells of industrial cleaner and stale food. It’s worst around the holidays, but even at the best of times it’s not good.
Anyway, the store here was staffed with a ton of very helpful clerks (either that, or they wanted to make sure I wasn’t some kind of mouth-breathing deviant there to drool into the discount bins) and when we got to the checkout counter we were presented with a free disc called “Heavenly. Music For Angels.”
It was worth every penny.
New age music seems to fall into two major categories: Stuff you hear in elevators and Stuff you hear in the background of movies. Some of the tunes in the second category aren’t bad… They’re unobtrusive and you don’t feel guilty about talking over them, even if you sometimes get the impression that you should be part of a film montage. Unfortunately, this CD falls in to the first category.
The first song was full of people singing “aaaaahhhhhhh…. aaaaahhhhhhh…. aaaaahhhhhhh….” A lot. And slowly. Eventually they start to vary pitch and develop harmony, but it’s too little, too late. If you had this on the radio on a long highway voyage you wound have drifted into oncoming traffic after the first thirty seconds.
So, to sum up, free is nice. Good is better.