It’s a Sunday morning in line at Alpine Bagels, and you have a splitting Aristocrat-induced hangover. You thought the bottle of Revive Vitamin Water and the Tabasco-heavy Good Morning Camper would alleviate the pain, but nothing seems to be working. Then, Christina Aguilera’s “Come On Over Baby” oozes from the speakers. The guy next to you starts to hum and the girls across the room tap their fingers and bounce their shoulders. You sing along, too—and suddenly, everything is OK.
This is the magic of the music at Alpine.
Since I first stepped foot into the West Campus bagel haven, I have been awed and mystified by its playlist. I’ve sort of figured the station is somehow beamed straight from Heaven—how could this amazing mix of wildly disparate artists be possible anywhere else? Seriously: Log an hour with Shazam open on your iPhone, and you’ll have the perfect mix for this Saturday’s party ready to go.
“They like it, they love the songs,” Alpine Supervisor Monte Tatum says about students, as the song segues from “Toxic” to “7 Things.” (“SSSHA!,” Miley whispers over the cash register). “It’s good music because it’s a blend.”
Yes, Monte, it is a blend. And what a blend it is! There must be some mad genius manning the boards in a hidden DJ booth up by the “Does the pope wear a funny hat?” sign, right? I mean, how could an ordinary human being choose to play “Burning Down the House” by Talking Heads after “Hey Jealousy” by the Gin Blossoms and still have the faith that everyone will hum along?
It’s gotten to the point where the playlist seems to achieve a sort of divine wish fulfillment—when a certain song comes on, the song is playing for you. Going through a rough patch in your relationship? “Complicated” blares from the speakers. Cell phone starts ringing? Cue up “Wake Up Call.” Pouring outside? Rihanna will gladly let you stand under her “Umbrella.”
The distracting brilliance of certain songs has, in the past, knocked me off my feet as I munched on my Pilgrim’s Pride. For example, I’m convinced that aspiring songwriters would be hard-pressed to find a chorus more sweeping and affecting than JoJo’s “Too Little Too Late.” The synth tones of Erasure’s “Chains of Love” wowed me at once, forcing me to run back to my dorm to find every song I could by the long-forgotten ’80s New Wave band. And after hearing Aly & AJ’s “Potential Love Song” so many times (I don’t think I’ve ever sat in Alpine without hearing it), I could write a dissertation on the snapping wooden castanets that come in on each chorus.
Steve Eller, Alpine’s director of operations, says that students “always” come up to him to say how much they love the music. “They hang out here all day just for the environment,” he tells me as “We Got The Beat” by The Go-Go’s blasts in the background. “They sit here for hours, sit in their little groups over frozen yogurt, just to listen to the music.”
So the question remains, then, exactly where is this music coming from? Monte insists there’s a satellite radio station behind all of this, but he was mum on the details. Eller says they have access to 70 different satellite radio stations and they “change it” on a regular basis. Another employee assured me that it stays on the same station. But I never got a clear answer of which station that might be.
Only one conclusion can be drawn from all of this—the playlist that controls the music at Alpine Bagels is a deep secret hidden from civilians, its source never to be released.
Yet I can’t say I’m too disappointed that no one could give me a straight answer. Finding the precise station that is used to create such a joyous mix of musical eras and genres would be sort of like finding out that Santa Claus doesn’t exist.
So I’ll keep with my original theory: The music is sprung from our own imaginations, a utopia where people of all social circles can listen to music by vastly differing artists. I’m talking about a world where J. Lo’s “Waiting for Tonight” can ratchet up anticipation for a Friday, Aaliyah’s “Are You That Somebody” can eulogize the singer who died too young and Huey Lewis and The News can sing “The Heart of Rock & Roll” as if the ’80s never ended.
And suddenly, everything is OK.
Nathan Freeman is a Trinity senior. His column runs every Friday.
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