Music History

Yesterday I saw this post on a blog I have begun reading (one of many) that I got linked to from dooce.com. The whole thing made me laugh thinking about my own history with music and how our music histories differ because of our ever so slight age difference. The main thing that her post got me thinking about was what is the first song I can remember listening to. It's "Burning Down the House" by Talking Heads, which EVERY time I hear it instantly takes me back to sitting in my dad's beat up, giant hole in the floor boards, POS, tiny Datsun pickup truck. My dad had the LP of Stop Making Sense and had copied it onto a tape. Every song from that album makes me thing of my dad and that Datsun.

I remember having a couple of LPs of my own when I was young. I had a Sesame Street album. I can't figure out or remember which one, but I seem to remember something like Sesame Street characters doing Sesame Street style versions of pop songs. I also remember getting the soundtrack to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie on LP. I have no idea why I got that, I don't even remember listening to it.

My music listening until late elementary school was definately my parents style. Jethro Tull, Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band and the like filled our house quite frequently. My parents are fun people and liked to play their music loud and often. Luckily we had a house that was surrounded by woods, so there were no neighbors to be concerned with the noise. The first time I remember finding my own taste in music was 5th grade. For me that was the time of New Kids on the Block. I was totally obsessed with Donnie, Jordon, Jon, Danny & Joe. I had cassettes and video tapes and posters and I was always begging my mom to get me the teen magazines that updated me on each New Kids' specific likes and dislikes. I also am pretty sure that 5th grade is when I asked for both the Metallica Black album and Billy Joels' River of Dreams for Christmas. That was also the time of Kris Kross ("Jump Jump") and Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody (thanks to Wayne's World).

I think my taste in music through junior high was just a terrible continuation of 5th grade. High school started out pretty bland music wise, I think I listened to one cd during 10th grade (Tori Amos, Little Earthquakes), but then I met Gil. Gil put the spark into my eclectic taste in music. He introduced me to Soul Coughing, Portishead, Dream Warriors, A Tribe Called Quest and many others. I have enjoyed every artist he has introduced me to. He continued to affect my listening habits and tastes through high school and into college. Sidenote: I have also put a lot of energy into constantly trying to "beat" him in music, by finding out about a cool artist before he does. I have failed several times, with Herbalizer and Roisin Murphy. However, my greatest success in this arena was Matisyahu. I heard one of his songs off the live album on XPN at random one morning. I loved it and when they said it was a hasidic jewish reggae rapper, I had to run right out and buy it. Gil was home one weekend shortly after this and I played the cd. He had never heard of it and loved it just as much as I had. Sweet Victory!

Back on track, we went off to college at the beginning of the internet music sharing craze, before you had to pay and before all the lawsuits. We shared all our music on the college's network. I got so much music then, all of which I still have (shhh!). That's when I discovered Radiohead. I loved the music of my freshman semester at college. Since then all my new music has come from one source, XPN.

All this music talk is also relative to my moving back to PA. Being out here in Utah I feel like I've completely lost my sense of new music. The only new music I've discovered in the last 6 months has been Roisin Murphy, whom I discovered not thanks to a radio station or a friend, but thanks to my obsession with a little tv show called "So You Think You Can Dance". It's sad and I feel lost without access to new music, but there are NO decent radio stations out here. They all suck. However, back in PA I will be back in the land of the radio station I LOVE!!! 88.5 WXPN is wonderful. I can basically describe my current music tastes as "anything they'll play on XPN", with the exception of Echoes and Sleepy Hollow (radio shows, not songs or artists). I am OH SO VERY EXCITED to be able to listen to XPN once again.