Music that I like

Music. I love music. It's so important to me that I listen to music every day. And I don't listen to as much music as I would like to either. I would like to listen to music all day at work and then as soon as I get home put something on and blast it through the house. Can't always do that. But I still love it and listen to a lot of different things. I have met a lot of people who are very picky about listening to one specific "type" of music or another. But I honestly don't think that is being fair to oneself. If you prefer or don't prefer a style, that's totally cool. But you should still not rule out that you may one day like something by someone which is technically "classified" as that style that you always said you disliked.

Me - I like lots of stuff. My father always played classical in the house, so I have a great appreciation for a lot of different classical music, although I may not know the names or composers of that many pieces. I recognize a LOT more than I can name. I grew up listening to The Beatles, John Denver, The Carpenters, musicals and lots of classical. When I got older, I listened to AM radio, so I liked some of the more popular music of the time. Then as I became a teenager, I loved hip hop and rap - the "old school" stuff like Run DMC, LLCoolJ, Sugar Hill Gang, Grandmaster Flash, Whodini, Afrika Bambaata and the Soulsonic Force and Tommy Boy Records! Great stuff!! Also dance music that was out at that time. There were a lot of one-hit wonders in the dance scene, but there was some great music coming out. When Madonna was new and all the elementary school girls were dressing up like little Madonna's in lace t-shirts and fingerless gloves! I have a whole crate full of records from that time! I still love that stuff.

In high school I moved into liking more "alternative rock" type stuff like Depeche Mode, New Order, The Cure, Bronski Beat, Yaz, Sting's solo stuff, R.E.M. - and then came U2. My obsession with U2 began when they played Live Aid in 1987. I saw them perform "Bad" and could barely breathe. I was watching it on TV and I was mesmerized. I could not believe how moved the crowd was by this song, by Bono singing, by whatever it was that was moving them about this music. I was totally hooked! I bought biography books, books on Ireland, subscribed to U2 fanzines (back when they were photocopied, or better yet, mimeographed). I was taken by this band and their music! Then, The Joshua Tree came out! Sadly, through a travesty I will not go through here, I missed out on getting tickets for the tour. This was after I had begin to go to concerts and I was just heartbroken. A person I thought was my friend had gotten tickets and went to the concert, knowing how envious I was of her. She came back showing off her $18 t-shirt, which was black with a design in gold colored ink, the album cover or something. Then she said she got me a t-shirt too! She handed me a shitty white shirt with a badly printed design on the front and back. She said it was only $10 bucks in the parking lot! Like I said, I THOUGHT she was my friend. That was near the end of our friendship (I am not so shallow to judge a person just because they don't splurge on the expensive t-shirt, believe me, there is MUCH more to that story. Someday I might tell it here....) So anyway, I FINALLY got to see U2 live 3 years ago. YES THREE YEARS AGO!!! Much has gone on on the many years since high school and I was just never able to make it to a concert. But the one I went to was AWESOME and TOTALLY worth the wait!!!!

Okay, back to the subject. Music that I like. Well the concerts I went to are a good cross section of what I was into in HS. Suzanne Vega, Howard Jones, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, BoDeans, Robert Plant, 10,000 Maniacs, Melissa Etheridge, INXS, Yes. Later on, I found an Irish U2 wannabe band called the Black Velvet Band who I loved for the short time they were around. After that, in my early 20's, came the grunge era. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, all from Seattle, were great bands! I liked Faith No More, as well as Indigo Girls, Queensryche, King's X and Living Color. I liked Paula Cole, Shawn Colvin, Matthew Sweet, a band named Jellyfish that my brother discovered, Sarah McLachlan, the soundtracks to Chess and Rent. Tool became underground cool, and although I don't like all their stuff, I do like some of it. Nine Inch Nails became a staple in my CD collection. Tori Amos also made her way in. I discovered Barenaked Ladies, with their first album, Gordon. They are SO awesome!! I made my way back into Alternative music, which had morphed into Alternative Hard Rock. Late 90's to early 00's brought Staind, Days of the New, Finger Eleven, Sevendust, Linkin Park, Filter. Other bands/artists in there that are not mentioned elsewhere are Red Hot Chili Peppers, Lenny Kravitz, Michael Penn, Jonatha Brooke, Beastie Boys, Primus, some early Guns & Roses, Sublime, Ben Folds Five, Rage Against The Machine. And then the guilty pleasures like some Backstreet Boys, N'Sync, Christina Aguilera, Hanson, Spice Girls, TLC, Jennifer Lopez, Mariah Carey. I even found some pseudo-country stuff I liked in Shania Twain, some Faith Hill and Nickel Creek, a folky-pop group that got their start doing bluegrass music with Alison Krauss.

Over the years though, the staples on my CD shelf are U2, Indigo Girls, Melissa Etheridge, Tori Amos, Nine Inch Nails, some movie and musical soundtracks and a few new things that edge their way in and back out from time to time. But I still love all the music I ever loved. I like it the same as I did when I originally found it. I just love music. I couldn't imagine life without it.