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Why a 10-minute silent song is music to so many people's ears

song GMC Apple CarPlay
Image used with permission by copyright holder
Sometimes the simplest problems have the simplest solutions. Anyone who has ever tried to connect their phone to a car audio system has probably cursed the system at one point or another for automatically playing the first song in their music library. There are definitely worse problems in the world, but this was annoying enough for one person to come up with a creative solution. And the internet is thanking him.

Samir Rezhami released a song on iTunes that’s just 10 minutes of silence, Buzzfeed explains. It’s called “A a a a a Very Good Song,” so it’s guaranteed to jump to the head of the alphabetical queue in your music library. If your car starts automatically playing your entire music library, you’ll get a few minutes of silence instead of a song you might not have wanted to hear. If that sounds good, you can download Rezhami’s creation from iTunes for 99 cents and enjoy the sound of silence.

Plenty of people already have. Rezhami’s song appeared on iTunes earlier this week, and in less than a day, it climbed to number 67 on the iTunes charts, according to Engadget. The song beat out tracks from mainstream artists like Kendrick Lamar, Kesha, Selena Gomez, and The Chainsmokers, and Rezhami’s tweet announcing the song has garnered nearly 15,000 likes.

It’s worth noting that there’s nothing stopping you from making your own blank song, but many people are apparently willing to pay 99 cents for the convenience of having one already made. Apple could also remove the song from iTunes since, you know, it isn’t really a song, although the company does a get a cut of each sale of silence. Who knows, maybe this completely blank track will rise to the top of the iTunes charts. Wouldn’t that be funny?

Despite all of the clever technology in modern cars, quirks and flaws like unwanted music autoplaying continue to crop up. That will likely always be the case with intricately interconnected car electronics. Because people apparently have nothing better to think about, these issues can even turn something like a silent 10-minute song into an internet sensation.

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Stephen Edelstein
Stephen is a freelance automotive journalist covering all things cars. He likes anything with four wheels, from classic cars…
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