I have an ambivalent relationship with Singles Awareness Day.
On one hand, we all know singles that never fail to brighten up our day. On the other hand, we all also know singles that we wish would just get over themselves.
The real question is this: why do we need a special day dedicated to singles when radio stations are shoving A-sides into our faces day in and day out?
Well, just to humor everyone, I’ll talk a little bit about singles. Historians trace singles back to the late 19th century, when the gramophone was having its first commercial success.
Even then, I’m sure there were some people who didn’t like them. “It’s too commercial,” they said, as they drank whatever the 19th-century equivalent of an IPA was.
Advances in technology gradually improved the sound quality of singles, thus allowing discerning listeners to develop a keener sense of how overproduced and awful they were.
Eventually, someone came up with a bright idea: take the forty songs that are already most overplayed on the radio and dedicate a syndicated radio program to giving them even more air time. I wish I were making this up.
If it sounds like I’m being a scrooge, rest assured that for every dozen singles that I hate, there are a few that I love to listen to over and over again. Like “Karma Chameleon.” The odds are pretty good that as you read this, I am thinking about that song.
And if you know the song, you now have it stuck in your head too. I’m not sorry.
Anyway, I should get back to Singles Awareness Day. What do you do on Singles Awareness Day? Do you listen to pop radio nonstop as an exercise in self-denial? Or do you make a cross-genre playlist of singles that the DJs never picked up and have some real fun?
Honestly, I’m imagining some sort of a party that exists solely for the guests to quietly make fun of whoever the one person is who gets excited every single time “Demons” comes on.
I’ve got to give Singles Awareness Day some credit; making it the same day as Valentines Day makes a lot of sense. Ever since the biggest boy band ever got out of Liverpool and into our living rooms, love and love lost have been the dominant subjects of singles.
Talking about love lost gives me an idea: what if there were a holiday dedicated specifically to people who weren’t in a relationship? I’d say we should call it “Singles Awareness Day,” but that would just be too confusing.
