Peer influences

I was pondering the influence of others on what we do the other day while recovering from a periodic condition that flared up.

For instance there was a time when I'd allow what other people thought about my tastes in clothes dictate what I would choose by either colour or type - I loved knitted tank tops but my friends would say 'Nah' - and back it would to either the store or a used clothes selection.

Or someone would say "If you go there with him, I won't speak to you" and I thought this was okay at the time.

I noticed recently two little reminders of this type of thinking when reviewing my cd collection where a group of people sought to influence which copy of an album to have though peer pressure at a place where briefly I joined.

The first was the soundtrack to Saturday Night Fever where I have a very nice lp copy but when in 1995 the cd was reissued onto a single disc compared to two i finally brought a copy which I thought was pretty good. This was a downfall as a lot of people there kept on saying how the older one was better with the vocals more upfront, having issues with process called UV22 used to master it to cd and I allowed them to influence me into getting this one and removing my more recent edition.

As well, I allowed them to talk me into replacing the remastered edition of Kiss's Love Gun to an West German original again because the view seemed to be the older the better.

Now as I think I wrote maybe three or four years ago because of the 'make everything darn loud' thing going on indeed some older cds are better but on these two this isn't the case.

Take Love Gun first, it has the same lack of upper high notes like on the percussion as the 1982 UK lp that I replaced in a matter of months with the US original even though I love that 'starburst' Casablanca label design so I ended rebuying the remastered copy which may be a just a tad louder but has a much fuller sound.

Saturday Night Fever was similar because although I like the emphasize on the mids, there's something quite wishy washy going on on the high notes sounding like a tape going up and down the tape heads on a tape recorder and being somewhat recessed too so I've just re-bought the 1995 edition.

I think the moral here is we own our own preferences, which isn't to say others can't offer their advice when asked, not being put off by peer pressure or the thought someone might think you're a bit funny for having your likes.

They may even be wrong.

Also we need to be on our guard for those that invade our head space making everything into it's me or him for no good reason. Boundaries exist for a good reason and they ought to be respected.