Music (What A Descriptive Title!)

Okay, first off: I love music. And I have one of the most eclectic iTunes libraries of any of my friends. It ranges from Aaron Neville to ZZ Top, with almost 5,000 songs in between. A lot of it is stuff that I've downloaded and forgotten about; I have a terrible habit of downloading the entire discography of an artist because I want one or two songs. This means that I end up with a huge amount of music that I've never even listened to.

Every few months, I decide to go through all of that music that's never been played on my iTunes and find some new favorites. It's almost like when you clean out your purse and find that lip balm that you bought ages ago but never used. There are currently 789 songs on my"Never Listened" playlist. This is actually pretty low for me- it's typically over 1,000. But the crazy thing about going through stuff I've never listened to is finding songs that I love, but had no idea I had.

A great example of this is Bonnie Raitt. I ripped her greatest hits album over the summer when I was home (my mom has it) and promptly forgot all about it. It never came up in shuffle, and I never thought to look for it. But I found it while searching through my never listened playlist, and I'm currently working my way through it. And it's excellent. I never appreciated the music my mom listened to when I was younger, but I'm realizing that she had some really excellent stuff (Joni Mitchell, Carole King, The Clash...). I really do like older stuff that my mom likes. I'm a big fan of classic rock; Springsteen, Supertramp, Fleetwood Mac, Jefferson Airplane, Phish, Van Halen, the Doobie Brothers, Wings, The Who, the Rolling Stones...all the bands that they play on WAAL at home. And I get so surprised when I realize I have some of their stuff on my computer!

I also have a soft spot for country. Not the older stuff, like Loretta Lynne, but I secretly really like modern country music. I think a lot of it has to do with where I grew up, and the fact that in Deposit, you hear WHWK basically everywhere you go. I don't have much of it on my computer, but I do appreciate it when I go home. It's the kind of music that makes me think of home, in the summertime, driving to the lake with the windows rolled down and the radio turned WAY up, with a cold drink in my hand and flip flops on my feet.

A really big music scene that I never even came close to experiencing at home was indie music. Everyone defines "indie" differently, but to me, it just seems to be music that isn't really popular among mainstream America, but that is big among 18-26 year old urbanites. This seems really specific, but it's actually a huge thing. A lot of my friends from home have never even heard a lot of these artists, and would probably be really confused if they heard them. Joanna Newsom, Neon Indian, Ariel Pink, Fang Island...this isn't exactly the kind of stuff we listen to in Deposit.

Since coming to NYU, I've really grown to enjoy some relatively unknown bands, though, and I now read pitchfork, videogum, baeblemusic, etc. pretty regularly (and no, I don't want to talk about the videogum redesign. The wounds are still too fresh.), I download an obscene amount of music (legally, right? right.), and I have succeeded in completely confusing my brother with over 75% of the music on my iPod (my favorite comment: "Titus Andronicus? Wasn't he in Gladiator? Why are you listening to some old Roman dude?" Sigh. Keep in mind, though, that this is coming from someone whose favorite band is Metallica.).

I could keep writing about all the other genres of music I love (heavy metal, blues, and rap among them) but I would rather keep this post a manageable size. Maybe later.