Get to Know your Fellow D.B.Oer | Music (DBO)

by stabbim , Des Moines, IA, USA, Monday, April 09, 2018, 16:08 (2419 days ago) @ INSANEdrive

[*]What do you look for in music? What is musics purpose for you?

Well, as I alluded to here, part of it is that I don't like to think what I'm listening to is artificial or insincere in any way. It's a little hard to define, but I generally prefer music that was actually created by the person or group whose name is on it, you know? Doesn't have to be exclusive, plenty of people I listen to use co-writers and the like. I'm just not a big fan of the scenario where someone gets famous recording vocals on tracks that are really someone else's creative work. Beyond that, I dunno if there is anything very specific that I look for. I don't think I've ever had a genre. I probably tend to gravitate most towards the sort of emo/pop-punk/post-hardcore scene that was big in the mid-2000's, but that's hardly exclusive. I guess I just want good grooves, and music that's actually ABOUT something. Feelings, politics, whatever. Just not about partying in the club, you know?

[*]How has your taste for music changed, if they have, through the years and what do you think caused this/these change(s)?

This is the most interesting question here, for me. I didn't really have ANY taste for music through most of my childhood. I can remember, in elementary or middle school, other kids wearing shirts to school that said "311" or "Tool." I had basically no awareness of what any of it meant. Music wasn't a big thing in my house, and TBH I didn't have very many friends - and none of them were really into music either.

Somewhere towards the very end of high school, I did finally become aware of SOME music. It was mostly the sort of rock music that would get played on the radio. Metallica and the like. I went to an Incubus concert in high school (Hoobastank opened for them - oh yeah), and like everyone at the time (I graduated in '03, for reference) I was into Linkin Park's first two albums. And of course everyone was listening to Limp Bizkit back then although I could not explain why to you now. Oh, and I guess I did listen to some Eminem. The Eminem Show came out during my junior year, and that was all that was coming out of anyone's cars for a good 6 months. Or more. Around this same time, my best friend (who has almost no interest or definable taste in music otherwise) got me into Meat Loaf. Yeah, I know - but the Bat Out of Hell albums do still kind of work for me, for some reason.

Note: This is the singer I referred to here.

Back then, I hadn't developed my snobbish opinions on music yet. Later, I reconciled those opinions with my Meat Loaf fandom by telling myself that because the Bat Out of Hell albums were rock operas performed as a sort of show, that Meat Loaf was actually just an actor playing a character. And TBH, I think it's true. Fun fact: I own physical copies of NEARLY every Meat Loaf album ever made. There was one compilation album I didn't buy because it was made up entirely of tracks from things I already owned. But otherwise, I have them all - at least, as of around 2004 when I set out to do it.

High school is also when one of my worst characteristics (IMO) started. Which is that I do a TERRIBLE job of discovering new music. Both new artists, and even additional stuff from artists I know. The reason (at least initially) was that the radio antenna in my car was broken. Note that I said the antenna, not the radio. It was known that the radio didn't work in the car I bought from my Dad my junior year - it couldn't receive anything at all. However, after I replaced the head unit in that car, the radio still didn't work (yes, I plugged the antenna cable in). Somewhere in that car between the head unit and the antenna, there was a break. The result of that was that the only music I had through all of high school and college was what I could load on to CDs (I did at least have MP3 CDs as a resource). The result of THAT was that I would tend to just let what I already had stay on repeat for a LONG time, and I absolutely never listened to the radio. This, combined with a very small number of actual close friends (one of whom, as mentioned, is not that into music), meant that I never had any idea what was current, new, or popular. Even during college when MySpace was a thing, I only had like 1 or 2 people I actually talked to frequently on there. I must have been the only person my age at that time who didn't discover music through MySpace.

During college, and the next 2-3 years after that, I started getting into the stuff I mentioned above. Emo, pop-punk, post-hardcore type stuff. While my own capacity to discover music was almost non-existent, I did make friends with a couple of guys who got me into things like Taking Back Sunday, Say Anything, and MCR. One of them also got me into Ben Folds - he played guitar and I heard him do a few Ben Folds Five songs. He also loaned me a few compilation albums. Warped Tour compilations, and a Drive-Thru Records/Fueled by Ramen sampler where I first heard my favorite band, Paramore. Side note: Paramore has probably been my favorite band since around 2007 when I got their second album, but I didn't actually realize that until more recently, like around 2014. It just finally hit me one day that I had never heard a song of theirs that I didn't love. For the most part, I kind of stuck to that same type of music, other than a brief fling with country music around 2005 or 2006. 4 or 5 years ago, I had a sudden epiphany that maybe pop music wasn't all terrible, but that realization really started around 2007:

I was working in an office at the time, and they had satellite radio rotating between a bunch of stations that the staff had chosen. Most of it didn't really interest me - I probably should have been excited to finally know what was playing on popular radio, but I was pretty thoroughly into my "I don't listen to popular music" stubbornness by then. But I do remember hearing my first Taylor Swift song (it was "Should've Said No," if you're wondering). Something about it struck me as different from the other stuff on that country station, though I didn't really know why. For the next several years, I always paid attention to her as she very quickly exploded, but I wouldn't have admitted it to anyone at the time. I actually remember a special about her coming on a TV news show when I was at my parents' place for Thanksgiving, and I very discretely made sure the TV stayed on that channel without really telling anyone why. A bit later, I think after her second album was out, a good friend of mine who is a MUCH more severe music snob than I have ever been, told he was learning one of Taylor's songs to play to his girlfriend (now wife), and he just happened to mention in passing "she writes her own songs, you know." This, in my mind, essentially gave me permission to become a shameless Stan. ANYWAY, the point of all this is that I remained one, and when 1989 came out I finally was convinced to listen to something outside of my guitar/bass/drums comfort zone, and admit that something that includes electronics could actually be creatively valid.

This has opened a floodgate that I'm still not sure how to cope with - there's so much out there now, and combined with my music habits (as a holdover from when I had a limited selection, I still tend to listen to the same album for weeks at a time), I constantly feel like I'm falling behind. My list of to-buy albums on Amazon is pages long. Oh, I just realized I forgot to mention the other problem with me and music - I have never gotten on board with the streaming music movement. I have never subscribed to a paid service, and I HATE ads with a burning passion. So everything I listen to is stuff I actually possess (I would like to say "own," but I admit that I went through a BitTorrent phase many years ago in an attempt to catch up with all the great stuff I had missed - I'm not proud of it), barring an occasional YouTube session (I just finished listening to "The Shape of Punk to Come," - thanks, kidtsunami!).

[*]Bonus Question: Have you ever played an instrument? If so do you still play? Are or were you any good? Is there anything you've thought about playing?
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Nope. I've never had any creative impulse at all, as far as I can remember.

I would love to go into more of what I ACTUALLY listen to, as it's not really represented here for the most part. I tried to just focus on points in my life where there were identifiable changes. But this post is already a wall of text. :)