My love for music began when I was about 10 years old in the 1970s. My sister and I would record our favorite songs from Casey Kasem's Top 100 songs of the year countdown. Sometimes we'd catch them on the weekly Top 40. We had one of those old cassette recorders with a corded microphone attached, which we'd carefully position a few inches away from my mom's stereo console speakers. We only had a split second to recognize the song before we hit play and record simultaneously. Soon, our generic blank cassettes (TDKs if we could afford them) would be filled from side to side.
If we couldn't catch them on the radio (or didn't want to wait), we'd make a trip to Murphy's Department Store or Bramer Electric to pick up the latest hits on 45 rpm vinyl records. They'd always be locked behind a glass case. I remember hearing Abba's "Knowing Me, Knowing You" about a million times on our boom box during a 25-mile walk-a-thon, so I had to have a record of it when I got home.
It would be my mom in my teenage years that further influenced my love of music. She'd play everything from Lou Rawls to Patsy Cline to Donna Summer to the Tavares. If it wasn't on album, she'd have the 8-track.
Cassette tapes would be the media of choice for me for well over a decade after that. In college, I would pop in purchased cassette singles of my favorite hits from Madonna, Whitney Houston, George Michael, and more. My taste ranged from nearly every '70s hit to some of the '80s and '90s tunes. I loved disco music, of course.
But something changed in the mid to late 1990s. It began with the explosion of bands and songs in the late '80s. Suddenly, there was so much music out there that you couldn't keep up. I began to distance myself because, well, a lot of it was crap. When rap and hip-hop hit, that really tanked my love of music. It festered into the mainstream like a virus, and unlike disco, it has never stopped. Don't get me started on rap songs that begin with samples from hits from my era. It's nothing more than stealing.
I guess age also had lot of to do with my change in taste. I still like all my old songs, but I listen to them far less often. I do not have music playing in my car anymore, mostly because I despise commercials and my cassettes were eventually replaced with CDs.
There's also an emotional quality about listening to music from my past. When I have some wine and play my favorite songs, I am on the highest high. I LOVE them. I remember all the lyrics. And if I am out at a bar dancing, I will literally dance the night away. I do notice that the dance floor usually fills when I ask the DJ to play a hit that we all loved back in the day.
At home, I can get on an hours-long roll with a Youtube playlist that includes the Bee Gees, Diana Ross, Jody Watley, The Stylistics, The Carpenters, and more. Back when music was good.
There are several post-2000 tunes that I like. Keith Urban's "The Fighter," DNCE's "Cake by the Ocean," Katy Perry's "Chained to the Rhythm," and now Dua Lipa is hitting me hard with "Illusion" and "Training Season." Somehow I catch these songs through endless video scrolls on my phone. And yes, I like Sabrina Carpenter's "Espresso" and "Manchild." I may be old, but I'm not dead yet.
Still, music is not a mainstay in my life as much as it used to be. I have a boom box in my living room nook that plays classical throughout the day on a volume level so low you'd have to have your ears up to the speakers to hear it. It serves as soothing background fill. Also, in a world full of too many voices and too much chaos, silence is golden.
I think my reluctance to listen to music often also has a lot to do with how my creative mind reacts to too much stimulus. I definitely seek out the best music to fit my videos and documentaries, and I consider it to be the most important component. But music can be like a drug. It conjures up a lot of emotions (which is what it's supposed to do). But after over 60 years of life, the roller coaster of highs and lows can be a bit overwhelming. To me, like wine, it has to be enjoyed in moderation.
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