make your own kind of music

I started writing a long rambling post about my musical preferences. Yeah, I know, I know.. which of my blog posts aren't long and rambling? Anyway, I scrapped that post in favor of one that is shorter and more to my point.

Maybe.— JPiC 

I love music. I have always loved music. As a kid, I listened to the radio. I bought 45s and albums. I had an 8-track player in my car. I went to concerts. (I went to a lot of concerts.) I sang with friends who played guitar. (I couldn't carry a tune if it had handles on it it, but that never stopped me. I was having fun.) I just love music. But, like most things in my life, I don't take music too seriously. There is music I like and there is music that I don't like. Those who know me "in real life" (IRL, as the kids say), know me to be pretty outspoken and opinionated... especially about music.

I have seen numerous concerts from a wide variety of artists. I've seen Alice Cooper and Donnie & Marie. I've seen a dozen or so Grateful Dead shows, and I'm not even a fan. I saw teen heartthrobs Big Time Rush and four days later, I saw former teen heartthrobs The Monkees. Once, my wife and I went to see legendary crooner Tony Bennett. Just before the show started, I leaned close to my wife and whispered: "How many other people in this room have also seen The Clash... besides us?"

I try to keep up with current trends in music, but it's pretty tough. There are waaaay more outlets for music availability than when I was a teenager. There are current artists I like and current artist I don't like.... just like when I was a teenager. When I was younger, however, if I didn't like a band or a specific genre of music, I dismissed it with a very finalizing "this sucks!" I was the first person in my high school to wear a "Disco Sucks" t-shirt, as a result of the burgeoning trend bolstered by the film Saturday Night Fever (which I did not like.) A few years earlier, I was the first person in my high school to wear a KISS t-shirt, a mantle of which I am not particularly proud. When I displayed the slogan "Disco Sucks" in glittery letters across my chest, I was met with jeers from the silk-shirted, coiffed-hair cliques and with "thumbs up"s from the denim-and-flannel set.

Now, forty-something years later, I have taken a kinder and gentler view of music. First of all, I do not have a favorite band. I just like the music I like. Second, I have found that I am open to nearly any type of music and I have found something I like and appreciate in nearly every genre. Third, and most important, I have learned that no music really sucks. Sure, there is music that I don't like, but someone likes it. And if someone likes it, it can't possibly suck. So, I will no longer proclaim that a song or a band "sucks." I will simply say, "I don't care for it" or "This is not for me."

Or "Ugh! Not the fucking Dave Matthews Band again!"

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