Music

I’m always astounded at how strange my taste in music can be. It’s so inconsistant sometimes. My collection of cd’s began with a Phil Collins live album that my mom bought me on a trip to Aberdeen when I was ten. I love his music to this day, including several other childhood favorites like Belinda Carlisle and Bruce Springsteen. As a pre-teen I was devoted to the New Kids on the Block, however, I never really owned any of there albums. Makes me wonder what I was really devoted too. Anyway, by the time I was fourteen I found myself searching for music with more substance, more quality. I discovered Tori Amos shortly before I moved to the states and listened to her constantly, before I went to bed, during car drives, on walks, prefering my walkman to the stereo so I had a better chance of drowning out the world around me (the whole, depressed rebel teen thing-luckily my phase didn’t last too long). I also went through a Metallica phase. I had all the required “black” in my life, bedroom furniture, posters, t-shirts. This made me particularly attractive to a rather shy long haired kid in my algebra class who apparently had a crush on me for my entire ninth grade year, not making his feelings known until Valentines day when he suprised me with a dozen roses at school and a package with all the Metallica albums wrapped inside (very sweet but I wasn’t interested).
I grew out of the heavy metal by my senior year, a time when Alternative Rock was actually alternative and “New Age” music was the “new” thing. I started to listen to a lot of instrumental stuff, folk, celtic, Enya, Loreena McKennitt and of course, the angst of Alanis Morrissette. But I was also still fond of a lot of the new dance/techno music popular at the time. After taking a music apprecation course in college, I started to pay more attention to what I was listening to and found myself responding differently to music then the way I had before. I focused much more on the instruments being used, how they were used, and not just on the lyrics and how “catchy” the rythym was. Through Mike I found a new appreciation for music that I had always disliked for it’s awkwardness. Dave Matthew’s and Blue’s Traveler’s were both bands that were confusing to me because I just couldn’t digest it all. There was too much to focus on, too many different kinds of instruments, styles, etc. It was too hard to figure out what I like about them and a lot easier to say that I didn’t like them at all.
So, this past year I started liking jazz and now apparently punk (?) The Yeah Yeah Yeahs Maps is the new tune in my head.