MY MUSIC JOURNEY PT. 1

I have an oddly concrete memory of my journey across music genres as I grew older that I thought would be interesting to share with you all. I bolded song titles and artists throughout this post and put them in a Spotify playlist if you would like to listen along.

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One of my earliest memories of music is my younger sister's old favorite song. When she was around 6 or 7 years old, she loved playing "Me Without You" by Toby Mac over and over on my Mom's Ipod. I would like to say that her obsession with the song was because it's rare to find a good song in the Christian Pop genre, but I don't actually know how much that fact contributed to her obsession. However good for the soul the music may be, it left few opportunities for me to grow an appreciation for music growing up, save a couple songs like "Me Without You." Christian radio music was pretty much all my family listened to, all the time. I did not start developing an early ear appreciation for music through learning an instrument either, as after my Mom's entire childhood of being forced to play piano, she was terrified of forcing me to learn an instrument that I didn't like. For my entire youth up until late in middle school, I had barely listened to any popular music aside from what I heard at school.

My first major divergence from the Christian music genre came with my discovery of Soundcloud. My parents got me an iPhone in middle school so I could call them if I needed to be picked up from somewhere, so I was able to download it on there. I first discovered it through my hobby of Cardistry (the art of shuffling cards in a cool-looking way, basically). I wondered where the music in tutorial videos like these came from, and it led me to Soundcloud and a plethora of electronic/edm music (See: "Scriptina" and "Charge" by Losco).

The next step in my music discovery journey was Amazon music, which was recommended to me by our classmate Elijah. I had Amazon Prime so I could download plenty of songs onto my phone for free, which was perfect for long cross country/track meet bus rides. I started building my 80's and 90's rock playlist at this time, which now has more than 50 songs and still lives today on Spotify, where it is played occasionally on the speakers during fourth period Uni P.E. classes. Some of my favorite bands were Yes and Red Hot Chili Peppers, with songs like "South Side of the Sky," "Changes," and "Can't Stop" being among my favorites from them.

I survived on Amazon Music and Youtube for music for a long time, until an old friend reached out to me around my Freshman year, offering me a spot on their Spotify premium family plan that had just opened up. I migrated there, and still use this family plan today.

I had a short obsession with 60's music soon after I started Driver's Ed. Many of you may have had the exact instructor I had, who would play music from a 60's station on the radio during "behind the wheel" driving sessions. I obviously was not allowed to take out my phone while driving, but I would remember a few lyrics to my favorite songs of that day, and would look it up afterwards to save. Some of my favorites are "You Send Me" by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, "Chapel of Love" by The Dixie Cups, and "Have You Heard" by the Duprees. The 60's music I was hearing had such a special, delicate feeling behind it all that I enjoyed.

This is the part where I tell you to look forward to the next blog, where I recall my journey from this point to the present, discovering my love for hip-hop, R&B, and K-Pop (kinda). I'm actually interested to see if anybody has had a similar journey to me in any way, or if any of you have ever thought about your music taste expanding over time in the way that I have, so please leave a comment if you have any thoughts.