Reading, as I am, Dr Rohn’s most illuminating novel Experimental Heart I am struck by the richness of the musical references. People listen to all kinds of music in these fictive laboratories, all of it characterized by its dreadfulness. The senior PI listens to punk at full volume; the German postoc listens to ‘extinct techno’, and our hero, the only one with any taste at all, is chastised – chastised, I tell you – for listening to ancient soul ballads.
Without giving too much away, the nadir came when the beautiful but troubled heroine is tempted away from romantic salvation by the prospect of two concert tickets to see … well, what? Rush? Deep Purple? Bonnie Raitt? Salif Keita? Hawaiian Slack-Key Guitar? Metallica? Crowded House? Queen? (to take a random selection from my iPod) Iron Maiden, even? No teenage dirtbag she – it’s The Chemical Brothers. I can hardly bestir myself from my prone position even to be sick over the side of the sofa. Ah, that such people who pretend to taste and sophistication can sell themselves for a mess of pottage. Well, a mess, anyway.
In my day, back in the lab, we listened to Motorhead, the Mighty Zep, and medieval lute music. But that was before PCR, microarrays and Hox genes had been invented; before the young Dr Eppendorf had yet to invent the Tube that bears his name; and Stratagene was an album by Jean-Michel Jarre.
At least The Chemical Brothers has some vague allusion to lab work. Perhaps it was deliberate?
Hmm. Possibly. Like Motorhead’s Lab classic ACE of Spades.
I don’t know what my work friends listen to anymore since everyone is running thier own Ipod in their ears.
Back in my grad lab we at least could fight over what to play in the lab radio/cd/tape… mostly rock as far as i remember.