Your favourite house-cleaning / chores music (all artists including The Cure)

Started by SueC, December 20, 2019, 06:08:13

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SueC

Where do you put something that can have The Cure and other artists in it at the same time?  I've gone to this section, but if there's a better place, please move it there...

So, for most of us, life involves doing some tasks we don't especially look forward to, around the house and the outdoors.  If we avoid doing them, we end up living in a wallow (unless outsourcing the dirty work) and perhaps the house will crumble down around us and serve as our mausoleum:

Here lie Henry and Madeleine, who always put off their chores until their own ceilings fell on them, and this was after they contracted fungal pneumonia from the spores of their mouldy house and could barely crawl around anymore.
   :1f62d:

So that this fate doesn't befall us, we roll up our sleeves and get on with it.  We don't wait to "feel like" doing chores, because this is a recipe for eternal procrastination for many things that need to be done on a regular basis - we just do them, because they need to be done.

But, these tasks can be so much more enjoyable if you've got good podcasts, audio drama or music to listen to - then you don't feel like you are pouring your lamentably finite life down the drain.  Music especially has the added advantage that some sorts can energise you and actually help you work faster.

So, this is the thread where you can post your music recommendations for various tasks.

I'll give some examples of things that work for me:  For some reason, the live Cure album Paris is just right for when I have to mow lawns around the place.  It's become my go-to whenever I get the electric mower out of the shed.  (An electric mower is nice and quiet so doesn't interfere with headphone music, and unlike fuel-powered models makes no pollution for the operator to inhale, and the whole shebang gets recharged off the solar panels that power our off-grid house.)  Paris has a lovely mix of songs, some contemplative, others a bit more upbeat, and it just goes with late afternoon sunlight and working with green grass.

The other day, my husband suggested this as the classic song for vacuuming:


I had to dig a ditch a while back, and found this number very helpful for doing very physical work:


And the Cure song Lullaby's uses just keep growing and growing... already one of my all-time favourite songs which I actually need no excuse to listen to, it's so wonderfully theatrical and black-humorous and gorgeously constructed musically, don't get me started... anyway, it's actually extra funny if it comes up on your playlist when you're dealing with spiders and/or cobwebs, as I was the other day when cleaning the house exterior - sooooo many spiders in the Australian bush!   :yum:

...and it's even funnier if you are the spider, a situation I found myself in the other day: http://curefans.com/index.php?topic=3872.msg771358#msg771358

...it made a horrible, "I really didn't need another job to do" situation into something quite funny.

I'm also using the playlists in the "Listening to" sections on this forum for general cleaning tasks a fair bit, or when I'm making something, so keep it coming, people!  :smth023

So what are your favourite musical choices for when you have to do your chores?
SueC is time travelling

SueC

(C'mon, people - surely you're all shining your doorknobs this time of year, and will have made significant inroads on the dust mite populations of your residences... and don't tell me you're not listening to music doing those dull things...)

PS:  When other people join in, it can look like this:  https://www.horseforum.com/general-off-topic-discussion/your-favourite-house-cleaning-chores-music-810481/

Much bigger forum of course.  Just want to give an example of how nice it can be when people get interactive and bounce off each other!  :cool
SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

Quote from: SueC on December 23, 2019, 17:55:59(C'mon, people - surely you're all shining your doorknobs this time of year, and will have made significant inroads on the dust mite populations of your residences... and don't tell me you're not listening to music doing those dull things...)

No I don't. Normally when I do use the vacuum cleaner, I can't hear anything else! And I prefer to do dull things without music, in order to avoid one thing: the music reminding me of dull things when I listen to it later!  :1f635:
The holy city breathed like a dying man...

SueC

ROFL!  :rofl  ...I use those plug-into-ear-canal things when vacuuming (the ones that make your ears itch).  Brett, who's a slightly more sensitive soul than me with these matters, does this and also, to improve his listening experience, wears a pair of industrial noise-blocking earmuffs over the top of those when vacuuming.  As you can imagine, trying to get his attention when he is vacuuming is very difficult - I resort to turning the vacuum cleaner off at the power point in order to make contact, or I do lots of frantic waving in his visual field, when I do need to communicate with him.

I think we're both very good at backgrounding the boring stuff and focusing on the music, so we don't get the Pavlovian reaction to pairing these two activities. :angel

We just mentally and emotionally escape into an alternative universe like this, away from all the dullness etc.  Brett is also very good at that in other contexts, like with aggravating people - which I'm actually not very good at.  When he first met my mother, in the de-briefing afterwards, I said, "How on earth did you stand it?"  He said, "I simply imagined yellow tulips growing out of the top of her head.  It was really entertaining!"  :-D  I was very keen to learn his technique.

Speaking of Pavlov:

Pavlov was in a pub when the phone rang, and he said, "That reminds me!  I've got to go feed my dogs."  ;)
SueC is time travelling

Ulrich

Well I don't use headphones or plug-into-ear stuff, so that leaves me out.

I might play some music while doing "dusting off", but no preferences here, just what I'd listen to anyway...(see other topics for those).
The holy city breathed like a dying man...