Parking Garage Music

The best song in the world to listen to while driving around a parking garage is "Papua New Guinea," by the Future Sound of London. The second best is probably "The Great British Spring," by The Ladybug Transistor.

Both songs share a certain kind of calm-but-surging relentlessness that perfectly evokes the endless driving around in long ascending (or descending) rectangles that parking indoors always seems to require. They are rhythmic and focused, even-keeled but intense. They're food for the soul at a dark but placid moment.

"Papua New Guinea" is an old-school but surprisingly shrewd techno anthem. It's all electronic echoes and chopped-up samples, hollow phat melodic booms, rhythmic lulls and surges, and a haunting woodwind that penetrates the mix seemingly at random. Its role in the parking garage environment is to perfectly evoke — and thus perfectly complement — the garage's dank, artificial subterranean world, sprinkling a bit of bright digital magic amidst the gloom. The match is perfect enough to inspire creative writing. It's the theme for a parking garage.

"The Great British Spring," by contrast, frames and redefines the experience. Its bright brass and kick-drum rhythm matches the steadily questing movement of the car, but its sunny, expansive melody counterpoints the environment. It lifts the listener out of the gloom and makes the quest for an open spot a merry one. It brings a happy kind of dignity to an otherwise undignified and often frustrating job.

The opposite of parking garage music is anything written by Mclusky, or Stryper, or the Pixies (other than, perhaps, "Where is My Mind?" or "Dancing the Manta Ray"). Giddy or kinetic or hyperemotional or jumpy stuff has no place in the parking underworld. It's wrong, it's unnerving. You're already paranoid; you have no need to become hyper or distracted. Normal highway driving music (anything off of "Born to Run," "Back in the USSR," "Take on Me," etc.) likewise has no place in the garage.

There might even be a mix perfect for the parking garage experience, assuming that one had to drive around searching for a spot for 60 solid minutes. Here's what one such mix might look like:

1. "Papua New Guinea" / The Future Sound of London
2. "Turquoise Hexagon Sun" / Boards of Canada
3. "Beyond Belief" / Elvis Costello
4. "A Fine Day for a Parade" / Fountains of Wayne
5. "I'm Not Sorry" / Golden Palaminos
6. "Dogs Got a Bone" / The Beta Band
7. "Mr. E's Beautiful Blues" / The Eels
8. "Bad Cartridge (E-Pro)" / Beck remixed by Paza of The X-Dump
9. "Float On" / Modest Mouse
10. "Rousseau" / Pinback
11. "Dansk Party" / BS2000
12. "The Great British Spring" / The Ladybug Transistor

Let's hope they never build a garage big enough to warrant its creation.

— James Norton (jrnorton@flakmag.com)