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Precisely One Hour of House-Cleaning Music...

Posted April 4, 2004 11:37 AM.

New concept - don't clean until your house is clean, instead merely allocate time to the cleaning process and clean until that time is over whether you finish or not. Also if you finish before the time is up (unlikely) then clean something better than you would normally. I started this insane cleaning regimen yesterday with a statement that I would clean in a high-impact fashion for no more and no less than precisely one hour. I created an iTunes playlist full of motivational music with the sole intention of keeping me psyched about the whole horrors of cleaning my flat. It is precisely one hour long and is called Precisely One Hour of House-Cleaning Music. It contains a fair amount of cheese, for the specific reason that it's designed to get the heart-pounding and the mind focused on doing things (rather than being subtle or nuanced in any way) so don't get on my case about how lame it is. The first tune is designed to set the scene and the final one to get the pace back down to useful human-levels. List follows:

  1. "Main Title", Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Once More with Feeling
  2. "Because We Can", Moulin Rouge Soundtrack
  3. "God Save the Queen", Sex Pistols
  4. "Don't Be Light", Air
  5. "Fix Up, Look Sharp", Dizzee Rascal
  6. "Baby, I'm a Star", Prince and the Revolution
  7. "Live at Dominoes", The Avalanches
  8. "Love Burns", Black Rebel Motorcycle Club
  9. "Star Guitar", Chemical Brothers
  10. "Superheroes", Daft Punk
  11. "Fire Up the Shoesaw", Lionrock
  12. "Twist and Shout", Backbeat Soundtrack
  13. "Kodachrome", Paul Simon
  14. "I Fought the Law", Green Day
  15. "My weakness", Moby

Length of playlist 1 hour and zero minutes and zero seconds. Your time may vary based upon whether or not you cross-fade your songs or have inserted seconds of blank-space at the beginnings of your tracks.

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Comments

Please stay on-topic, informative and polite. I reserve the right to remove comments for whatever vague capricious reasons seem reasonable at the time.

An excellent idea, I did the same thing for my Pilates class. Its great as you don't have to watch the clock at all.
I wonder how it could be commercalised...

→ Posted by: Geoff at April 4, 2004 12:47 PM

An stirring example of pedantry at its finest. Excellent work. And the inclusion of a track from the Buffy musical soundtrack is inspired.

Can I ask for how long you were able to justify putting off the clean up by compiling this list? :)

→ Posted by: Joseph at April 4, 2004 1:09 PM

bigups go out ta dizzee and tha resta rolldeep blet. he is like da rawist. man alla roll deep r.

→ Posted by: dizzee_rox at April 4, 2004 2:06 PM

Good plan. See how long it takes before you're doing the cleaning reeeally slowly. Better concept: move to a smaller flat.

→ Posted by: Aegir at April 4, 2004 7:00 PM

"Don't Be Light" is such an awesome song.

→ Posted by: Kit at April 4, 2004 11:17 PM

I might just try this. Anything to try and make the time pass quicker.

Nice picks too.

→ Posted by: Rob at April 5, 2004 1:21 AM

nice mix tom :) i hadn't been here in ages! yes, the air track is absolutely wonderful!

→ Posted by: mish at April 5, 2004 4:45 AM

Aahh.. Kodachrome.. my favorite song, ever.

→ Posted by: sarcosos at April 5, 2004 8:04 AM

flylady to the rescue. ignore the religious overtones and housewifeyness, the method is valid.

→ Posted by: candace at April 5, 2004 11:40 AM

I'm picturing you strutting about with a hoover, a la Freddie Mercury in "I Want To Break Free", and I'm very disturbed by that.

→ Posted by: Dave at April 5, 2004 12:32 PM

But you don't say if it worked. Is the flat clean or did you end up dancing around the flat for an hour (which would make it a great motivational exercise playlist as well)?

→ Posted by: Jon at April 5, 2004 1:53 PM

You have neglected the seminal cleaning record from Chemical Brother, Exit Planet Dust. Points for Buffy, though. Also, cleaning up begins with making a cleaning up coctail. If you are into more indy stuff, I'd recommend also the Finnish trio The Cleaning Women (from planet Clinus, obviously).

→ Posted by: J-Ko at April 5, 2004 2:28 PM

Fantastic idea! I think I shall try that, rather than devoting an entire day to cleaning.

→ Posted by: J at April 5, 2004 2:36 PM

What a wonderful idea! I'd also include a song from the Backbeat soundtrack: Long Tall Sally. In fact, I might just add the entire album... :)

→ Posted by: Jessi at April 5, 2004 4:13 PM

Personally, I've found that by far the best way to deal with housework is to lower my standards. Do you really NEED the ability to visually distinguish furniture from floor? I've learned not.

→ Posted by: Saltation at April 5, 2004 9:38 PM

Thanks for the idea, Tom. I'm going to try this.

--Ryan Schultz (Quiplash)

→ Posted by: Ryan Schultz at April 6, 2004 2:21 AM

Jez wanted to let ya know that the Buffy-theme is by a group called NerfHerder. On another note, real nice playlist.

→ Posted by: jonah at April 8, 2004 7:19 AM

great post, i like green day very much

→ Posted by: green day at September 7, 2005 9:49 PM

"Twist and Shout", Backbeat Soundtrack

→ Posted by: Sarah at September 24, 2006 3:35 AM

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