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A short history of my terrible taste in music
When I was a teenager, I swore that I'd never be one of those adults who was totally out of touch with the current scene. I'd never glare at my kids and tell them to turn off that noise. No, I'd keep up with popular music, and even if I didn't like it, I'd know who everyone was.
By the time I was 22, I had completely failed at this.
When I started college, I was still watching MTV (well, mostly VH1--less rap and metal there. Not to mention less non-music programming altogether) and listening to the radio. Somewhere around the Rise of Britney--who I liked, by the way--I just stopped wanting to keep up with things. Maybe it had something to do with September 11--which sounds hugely lame, but the fact is, I went into one of my hypomanic periods (see Katrina) and watched the news obsessively for two weeks after 9/11. And then, after that? I didn't watch TV for a year, maybe two. I kept the TV on Turner Classic Movies for several months, and then turned it off entirely. By the time I could stand to watch TV again, VH1 had followed in the footsteps of MTV and was mostly non-music programming. Sigh.
Growing up, though, my mother would play records while she cleaned house (or baked recreationally, for that matter), so I ended up growing up on Sheena Easton, Olivia Newton-John, and... Cats. I'm afraid this shaped my musical taste permanently, because, to this day, it's pretty awful. Mostly I listen to stupidcrackmusic. I'm not proud that I spent my formative years listening to Belinda Carlisle and Roxette, but I'm obviously not ashamed enough, because I still do. I have plenty of bands or artists I'm not embarrassed to say I listen to--Garbage, David Bowie, New Order, U2, Tori Amos, various movie soundtracks--but somehow, it's the stupidcrackmusic I turn to the most. I need some combination of melody, back-up harmony, and infectious beat (rock-awesome guitar is an acceptable substitute), generally speaking. This is why I tend not to like rap, punk (no, old-school punk. This stuff you kids call punk these days (shakes cane) is just really hoarse pop, thank you) or metal. It's got to be something I can deskdance to. This is not to say that I think that rap, real punk and metal aren't good music; they're just not genres I enjoy listening to. I don't like country for the same reason, although I do like the scourge of Nashville, pop country. Again, I blame it on the Sheena Easton records.
Music I am not ashamed to listen to (although maybe I should be)
Aerosmith
Air
Alizée
Tori Amos
The Bangles
Natasha Bedingfield
Blondie
David Bowie
Kate Bush
Neneh Cherry
Chicane
Kelly Clarkson
Lloyd Cole
Shawn Colvin
Jonathan Coulton
Sheryl Crow
Depeche Mode
Dido
Divinyls
Melissa Etheridge
Etro Anime
Nelly Furtado
Peter Gabriel
Garbage
Heart
Don Henley
INXS
Chris Isaak
The Killers
Madonna
Massive Attack
[Eleanor McEvoy]
[Loreena McKennitt]
[Sarah McLachlan]
Kylie Minogue
New Order
No Doubt and/or Gwen Stefani
Heather Nova
Joan Osborne
Pearl Jam
Pet Shop Boys
Poe
The Pretenders
Prince
The Rolling Stones
Roxy Music and/or Bryan Ferry
Semisonic
The Servant
Sia
Siouxsie and the Banshees
Sophie B Hawkins
Sting and/or The Police
Hayley Westenra
(*hangs head*)
Paula Abdul
Bryan Adams
Bananarama
Bon Jovi
Belinda Carlisle
Cher
Celine Dion
Evanescence
Exposé
Samantha Fox
Debbie Gibson
Jewel
Cyndi Lauper
Martika
Richard Marx
Britney Spears
Rod Stewart
Donna Summer
Tiffany
Whitesnake
See also
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