Sunday, June 8, 2008

Musical Time Machine

After looking over my music collection, I've noticed something very interesting about how my taste in music has evolved. But first, let me give you the back story.

The first CD I ever bought was Jimi Hendrix's "Axis: Bold As Love" when I was 11. Life changing. But I remember that the reason that I bought it was because my brother had a Hendrix tape and I absolutely loved it and had been listening to it for a long time before that. I listened to it so much that I wore the tape out. So basically, my early music appreciation lessons came from my brother's tape collection. Pink Floyd. Love and Rockets. The Jam. Blah, blah, blah...the list goes on. The thing is this: I listened to that stuff because it sounded cool. There was no outside influence on my taste in music at all. At that point, the musical universe was the top drawer of my dresser.

But once you get into junior high, it's inevitable that you start to care more about what your peers are listening to more than what you actually like. In 7th grade, I sheepishly bought No Doubt's "Tragic Kingdom" at a Wal-Mart because I knew this girl I liked had the same CD. I bought a Ten Foot Pole cd that totally sucked because I hung out with the skater kids and one of them had written that band name on his backpack in white-out. So yeah, lots of stupid things were listened to because it was "new and fresh", but 90% of which was total garbage.

Fast forward ten years. Here I am, looking over what I own now and thinking about what I listened to then. Anymore, I have much more fun finding older bands than I do finding new ones. I'm seldom psyched to go to a show because the people that I really want to see are either dead or too old to go on tour. It's true that finding a cool new band is fun, but rarely all that gratifying. After listening to Joy Division I can see definite connections to Interpol. Franz Ferdinand certainly has some similarities to early Bowie. So that's the new name of the game for me - find old bands and then see which contemporaries are claiming that sound as their own. Few and far between are the ones that can create an original style.

1 comment:

Brittany said...

I don't have the attention span to find "new" music. That's why I'm still listening to Rancid and Operation Ivy.