This blog is going to document my musical education,
in the hopes that I’ll eventually be able to consider myself a music nerd.
Being a nerd has always been second nature to me.
I’ve always thought of myself as one. I spent my childhood reading books
instead of playing outside. I discovered the internet when I was around 12, and
lurked in those AOL chat rooms for my favorite movies. I hopped from Youtube
comments to Television Without Pity forums and Livejournal to Tumblr and
individual blogs. I remember clear as day sitting on my friend’s front stoop as
she and a few other girls explained to me the fantastic wonders of Pirates of
the Caribbean and Harry Potter fanfiction. I spent days sitting in the graphic
novel section of my local Borders because I didn’t have the money to spend on
comics I’d finish reading in under an hour.
I collect science fiction shows the same way people
collect baseball cards or shot glasses. The way me and my friends handle Oscar
season is reminiscent of my brother’s Fantasy leagues.
I’ve never been ashamed of my interests. “Nerd” is a
term intended to be derogatory towards people who feel uncensored and overwhelming
passion and obsession towards something, and that passion is so strong we nerds
have reclaimed the title and wear it with honor.
But it’s easy when you surround yourself with like
minds. All my friends were right there with me. It’s what we talk about, movies
and television and books.
And for the most part, music kind of got left by the
wayside.
We listen to music, of course. We love music. But it
never went much further for most of us than what we were given to listen to by
the music industry. For me, I listened to the pop and hip hop prominent on the
radio, on Total Request Live and on The Box. Then it was the alternative rock
and pop-punk that slipped onto the Top 40 Countdown. Finally around my late
teens I spent most of my time listening to my father’s jazz and classic rock –
but the popular stuff they play endlessly on my local radio station. It all
kind of jumbled together for me for a long time. I’d burn CDs with “Mr. Big
Stuff” followed by “Mr. Brightside”,
Pink Floyd’s “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”, then Dave Brubeck’s “Take
Five.”
I didn’t listen to albums, I listened to mixes. I
was stuck permanently in shuffle.
I’m 23 years old, and today is the first day of
2013. I’m going to grad school in Colorado for journalism, and in my lifetime
I’ve own a portable cassette player, and then a portable CD player, and then an
mp3 player. I’ve seen the music industry change, and change hard. I want to be
fully conscious for the things that are going to come.
There are two people in my life I consider music
nerds, two people I care about deeply. They are different music nerds. The
first, my best friend Brett, flips through the radio to every single station
she’s got access to, can hear only a few notes of a song and instantly know who
it is and the name of the song, and some random fact about the band or her own
history related to that song. The other is my brother, James. James spent most
of his teenage years going to three or four concerts a week, local indie and
punk bands mostly, and he’s seen some huge bands at their very beginning. He
listens to bands that don’t even exist yet.
My hope is to be something in between Brett and
James.
I plan to post Monday through Friday. This is my 968596856th attempt to successfully manage a blog, but I have actual plans for each day of the week which will hopefully keep my interest and keep me dedicated.
Monday - New (to me) Music
Tuesday - Music Video Night
Wednesday - Playlist+ Place
Thursday - Throwback Thursday
Friday - Shuffle
Let's see how we do.
--GS
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