My love of music

As is probably apparent from my song lyrics-inspired blog title, I am a big fan of music. It has been a love of mine ever since I was a little kid.

One of my mom's favorite embarrassing stories about me illustrates this. One Easter, when I was very little, my three cousins were visiting from Northern California. We were doing one of my favorite Easter activities: an egg hunt (seriously, I used to beg my parents to re-hide the eggs after I had found them). My older cousin and I were scouring the front yard for the colorful little treasures. Our eyes simultaneously fell upon an egg stuck within the bushy branches of a rather tall shrub. Before I could race my cousin for the prize, however, the little stuffed bunny I was carrying began to play its tune. For a moment, I was immobilized by indecision. The egg beckoned, and if I delayed my cousin would claim it! And yet . . . the music played on. My decision was made. I dropped the basket and immediately started dancing.

A childhood musical obsession was the soundtrack to the movie Dirty Dancing. To this day, I still haven't seen the film. But I can still along to most of the songs. I remember putting on a show for my parents, me standing on the bricks in front of the fireplace, belting out "Hungry Eyes." I wouldn't discover rock music for another 10 years or so, but the song "Overload" definitely foreshadowed my future love of rock, as that one was one of my favorites.

My childhood was dominated by Disney soundtracks. I loved Disney songs, and I would memorize all of the words. My first exposure to popular music, as I remember it, was through Radio Disney. I later ventured onto KIIS FM, the local pop music station, once I realized I knew little about popular artists. It's strange to think about now, but the early development of my musical tastes was greatly motivated by the desire to fit in, rather than an inherent curiosity about music. I'd always loved music, yet for some reason I didn't do much to expand my musical horizons until I started feeling left out. Still, I avoided rock music, having some bizarre feeling that it was "bad." I swear I didn't grow up in a Puritan household!

One of the bands I credit with changing my opinion about rock music is Weezer. The music video for their song "Buddy Holly" was included with Windows 95 on my family's new computer. I grew a liking for the song, and was later surprised to hear it played on KROQ while my friend's mom was driving me home from school. Why, KROQ didn't play devil music after all!

Once the rock music floodgates were open in high school, I was sold. I devoured everything they played. Not long before, I had purchased my very first album, 14:59 by Sugar Ray. But after I discovered KROQ I began exclusively collecting albums by bands I heard on there. My two best friends, who were brothers, influenced my taste a bit as well. Through them I discovered The Offspring, who would be the first band I saw in concert (at Universal Amphitheater, which later became Gibson Amphitheater, which is now closed to make way for Harry Potter World . . . there is no justice in the world). I developed a taste for 90s grunge bands such as Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Stone Temple Pilots, Bush, and especially Soundgarden. As for more contemporary bands, my absolute favorite was Incubus. More than a decade later, I still follow them closely.

In college I began to try to expand my tastes beyond what was heard on the radio. I was beginning to grow tired of KROQ playing the same music over and over. While I still liked those bands, I wanted to recreate the excitement of discovery that I had felt when all of rock music was new. During this phase I discovered bands that would go on to become some of my favorites, including Injected, Cave In, and Failure. My snobbish preference for "heavy" music caused me to make some purchases that were less than stellar, but in retrospect my adventurousness of this time led me to some real unsung gems.

Eventually, through the influence of friends, I became a fan of classic rock as well. Since I didn't really want to spend the money on decades worth of albums from each major classic rock band, I would usually stick to greatest hits collections. This opened my eyes and ears to lots of new (to me) music, including bands I had at least some familiarity with, such as The Beatles.

Years later, rock is still my favorite genre. However, I have dropped the snobbish preference for "heavy" music and have been venturing out into other subgenres of rock and other musical genres entirely. Over the last year I've been working through the list of albums from the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die. It's a chronologically ordered list, and although it seems to have a bit of a UK-centered bias it is still a fascinating journey. I can't listen to each album too in depth since I have them on in the background when I'm doing work, but it's at least giving me an idea of the different sounds that have dominated popular music since the 1950s. I'm currently in the year 1976, which marked the beginning of punk rock with the debut album of The Ramones.

There we have it, an overview of my musical development! I'll definitely be talking a lot about music on this blog, whether it be album reviews or just general musical musings.