I accidentally came across this when I was looking for something on my laptop, and it adequately describes how I became addicted to music.
I will post concert reviews shortly.
AC/DC- For Those About To Rock, We Salute You [mp3](somewhat) recent discoveries: Vampire Weekend, The Vines, Matt Costa, Liam Finn, Television, The Clash, The Velvet Underground, Sondre Lerche.
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(4 January 2008)
My music, my life.
Last night, I pulled out my walkman for the first time in a long while and memories flooded me as I snuggled beneath my covers, enveloped by Oasis. I started thinking about how I’ve reached this point of my life, where music is truly my religion. At the end of sophomore year, I was pretty emotional and secluded myself from my friends a lot, ok, fine, I’ll say it: I was emo. I’d sit on my bed a lot, and once I put on the radio and started flipping through channels. I landed upon channel 104.9-twas fate from the beginning. I started making mix tapes from the radio of songs that I liked. I fell in love with Dashboard Confessional. I spent hours listening to them, it was as if Chris Carrabba and I were the only two people in the world who knew how I was feeling. This phase lasted a few months, and I soon moved onto a more eclectic taste of true alternative rock. During that summer, I was stranded in a foreign country, luckily, Emma had equipped me with some records that have changed my life. Coldplay, Keane, Snow Patrol, Jamie Cullum and Shinobu were my new loves. Even now, I adore Snow Patrol beyond comprehension. Junior year, I listened a lot to stuff like Jimmy Eat World, Yellowcard, My Chemical Romance and The Killers. My main source of music was the library, and I soon discovered what the hype about The Beatles was all about. I couldn’t get enough of I am the walrus. To this day, it remains my favourite of their’s. I discovered Panic! At The Disco before they got really big. I started hanging out a lot with Rania that year, which helped me expand both my scope of music and my horizons regarding life. She helped me realize so much about who I am and for that I am eternally grateful. The summer after junior year, Rania and I went to our first rock concert, BFD 2006. It was a life changing experience for me. I was surrounded by the reverberations of the deafening music, by great fashion, by marijuana smoke. It was heaven, I knew I was home. That summer, I discovered how much I could accomplish with wikipedia, limewire and blank cdrs. I’d find one band I liked, search similar artists, listen to them, and if I liked them, the cycle would start again. I made lists of bands I’d heard of, of bands that intrigued me. I spent hours hunting for music. It came to the point where I downloaded a lot of cds and they started piling up without me truly listening to them. After my downloading frenzy, I started to listen to each record thoroughly. I discovered how much I adore The Strokes. In my eyes, they were perfection, I couldn’t describe how or why I felt the way I did when I listened to them. Now I know it was because they were my first exposure to true rock n roll, the stripped down sound that was simultaneously rough and refined. I listened to Is This It over and over, never tiring of it. Someday became my anthem. I soon thereafter acquired Room on Fire and First Impressions (this was during the Fall of 2006, when FIOE had been released nine months prior). Albert Hammond Jr’s solo album was a pleasure to listen to as well, and I soon discovered The Strokes’ b sides and unreleased stuff. I was hooked, and still am. After I watched Little Miss Sunshine, I got the soundtrack and was hooked on Sufjan Stevens. The summer after senior year, I decided I needed more oldies so I listened a lot to The Smiths, Simon and Garfunkel, The Ramones, and of course, The Beatles. I also discovered how much I loved Oasis. I got XO out of the library one time, and upon hearing Waltz #2, I fell in love with Elliott Smith. When I got to Berkeley, my friends provided me with a lot more music, and I have a newfound love of Radiohead, Jack Johnson, Interpol, Andrew Bird, Klaxons, and The Shins. Bands I discovered on my own were Voxtrot, The Wallflowers, Arizona, Adam Green, Babyshambles/The Libertines, Beirut, Belle and Sebastian, Cold War Kids, The Hives, Feist, Regina Spektor and The Who. Good stuff.
As I’m writing this, I am listening to The Night Before by The Beatles (I have a playlist of their songs on shuffle right now). I had the entire Beatles discography from Rania but it got deleted off of my old PC, so I am indebted to Casey who gave me all of their albums.
Anyhow, music has always been taboo for me, my parents have never approved of any of it. I would have to sneak records into the house, and I’ve listened to so much music underneath my covers while everyone else was asleep.
Records that changed my life (in chronological order of doing so)
Herostrautus vs. Time-Shinobu
A Mark A Mission A Brand A Scar-Dashboard Confessional
Final Straw-Snow Patrol
Ocean Avenue-Yellowcard
Bleed American-Jimmy Eat World
Greatest Hits-Nirvana
Spiderman 2 Soundtrack
Hot Fuss-The Killers
Plans-Death Cab For Cutie
A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out-Panic! At The Disco
Magical Mystery Tour-The Beatles
Is This It-The Strokes
By The Way-Red Hot Chili Peppers
Meat is Murder-The Smiths
XO-Elliott Smith
Robbers and Cowards-Cold War Kids
The Gulag Orkestar-Beirut
Armchair Aprocrypha-Andrew Bird
In Rainbows-Radiohead
The first album I ever purchased: Songs About Jane-Maroon 5
The last album I purchased: I think it was Sawdust-The Killers
Thank goodness for music blogs! A source of ever new stuff (and old stuff I never knew about).
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