I hate jukeboxes. It really doesn't matter what the music being played is, or who played it. The very concept of a jukebox is anathema to me. Here is a device that has more ability to ruin my evening than any other. Think about this scenario, you're enjoying a quiet evening at the bar watching the Olympics only to have some vapid idiots interrupt the lives of everyone present to hear some bass filled, loud, musicless track so they can jump around in spastic, possibly epileptic, contortions related to dance in only the most tangential way.

But that's just one specific example. The concept of a jukebox isn't being able to listen to what you want to hear, it's the ability to decide for everyone else what they will be forced to hear. Even if they were perfectly content hearing nothing at all. Playing music in a bar is an act of extreme arrogance. This does not apply to venues where dancing is expected, but to simple bars. This also raises the larger question, which I won't address, which is how can one individual be so oblivious to, and insensitive of, the feelings of the others in the small room they have decided to unleash their inner asshole upon.

I used to engage in jukebox warfare, interrupting the music, and mood, by playing something that those using the electronic torture device would hate, interfering with them as much as they interfere with me. But it doesn't work, so I have a new idea. Normally, a song on the jukebox costs one dollar to play. Manufacturers should add a feature that allows the song playing to be immediately stopped and skipped for only a quarter. This would increase revenue, and force the person picking a song to make a good choice. Failing that, users should be allowed to purchase, for the price of a song, an empty track lasting the duration of an average song.

These are just pipe dreams though. The problem won't go away until someone gets drunk enough to shoot the thing, or someone figures out how to hack the device remotely. I'm working on the second option, give it time.