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The Pryor Learning Commons boasts millions of dollars worth of cutting-edge and innovative technology, but what it’s most known for is its diverse playlist. The speakers hang ruthlessly and unrelentingly above students’ heads on the top and bottom floors, like cold, dead eyes that remind us all of the void that should envelope this small and fragile campus should we be allowed a moment of silence. There is no accessible way to turn them off, so students are forced to enjoy to the same ten songs on repeat.

I have to admit, my favorite song the PLC plays is the Vitamin String Quartet cover of “Viva La Vida” by Coldplay, which is great for me because it’s played once every hour! Just when you start to think, “Huh, I haven’t heard that song in the past ten minutes…I wonder if something is wrong,” it’ll start playing again!

My favorite memory of the music in the PLC is when I foolishly tricked myself into thinking that studying without the violin covers of seventeen Beatles songs in a row would be a good idea. So I went to the second floor, and I was reading, I heard the soft sound of “Eleanor Rigby” wafting down from the top floor. Then I realized how much I need constant noise in my life, especially when I’m trying to study.

The best part of this music is that is seems to follow you wherever you go. If you walk out of the PLC halfway through an instrumental cover of Katy Perry’s “Firework,” the song doesn’t end. It’ll remain with you for the rest of the day, like a sort of lingering disease that doctors can’t explain. You call your mother and tell her you don’t know what’s wrong with you. “Mom,” you say in a shaky voice, trying to focus through the deafening vibrations of an early 2000s song you can’t remember the name to, “I need to escape this place. I haven’t slept in days.” She says something back to her, but you can’t hear her. You feel sick to your stomach. You look at your friends but you hardly recognize them anymore, and they don’t care about you anymore. It’s the music. It’s the music.