Discovering Individuality

Pretty intense title, right? Well, the thing is, I started talking about this earlier and I figured it was a pretty interesting topic, even if more than several people who read this have probably already experienced what I'm just discovering.

Taste in music. Not just music accually, other things follow the same pattern , I just find it easiest to relate it to music. What I started thinking about today was how it's sort of crazy that me and my sister love our favorite bands in almost the EXACT same way, even though they're different bands. Like, one day when I'd first started listening to Fall Out Boy, I said something to my sister about a specific situation that made me think of their lyrics or something like that, and she jumped in right away saying how that sounded exactly like something that happened to her, except pertaining to My Chemical Romance. And up untill just recently I figured that you liked whatever kind of music you listened you, not the other way around. I guess I'm just figuring out how to listen to the kind of music I like.

I assume this happens to pretty much everyone. You grow up in the backseat of your parents' car and listen to whatever records your mom is listening to or your dad's favorite radio station. And when someone asks you what kind of music you like, you tell them just the same. For me, it was country. I always accepted the self-assumed fact that I liked country music because that's what I heard most of the time, since it's what my mom liked. And, as my peers moved into late elementary or early middle school, I came to the conclusion that every one of them had the exact same taste in music - all the mainstream, Brittney Spears, boy band stuff that you had to listen to unless you were a total nobody. But in all honestly, I bet only ten percent of those trend-followers would still listen to that same exact genre of their own free will now that we're starting to realize we accually have individual tastes.

I also would very much like to know where our taste in music comes from. Judging by my own experience and the experience of several people I know, I'd have to say it looks like it's not an inherited thing. And it's not a primitive, survival instinct thing like your taste in guys. As far as our science teachers have told us, apparently our definition of an attractive specimin of the opposite gender is implanted in our brains as a way to preserve the human race. Whatever that means. But I doubt our species' survival depends on a person's liking rap music, so it kind of makes me wonder what part of our bodies or souls determines whether we're into the pop and punk and rock sounds, or into the hip-hop, R & B, and all that. And do we somehow subconsiously know what kind of music we like when we're really little? Or does it just come to us gradually?

So, basically, I'm fascinated with this little random topic. For the longest time I was convinced that anyone could fall in love with whatever kind of music they heard if they only had to listen to it for long enough. I'm pretty convinced now that that isn't true. I mean, I listened to country music for eleven years of my life and never felt the same way as I did the first time I heard Dance, Dance. I couldn't stop listening to it. I pressed repeat on my iPod at least twelve times before I could tear myself away and make myself listen to the next song. And then the same thing happened with Thnks fr th Mmrs (I have to give credit to my sis on that one - she bought those first two FOB songs for me and pretty much sent me into a spiraling, out-of-control obessesion. And I'd like to thank her from the bottom of my heart for it). So for a while, while I was infatuated with those two songs, my sister would go "Oh, so you're a Fall Out Boy fan?". I honestly didn't have a clue who Fall Out Boy was. I knew their name and I knew a couple of their songs, but I would just respond "No, basically it's just that I love those two songs." Then it turned into 5 songs and now it's tipping somewhere at 61. It was basically love at first sight. Except my eyes must have been directly connected to my ears which led straight to my heart.

So, just incase anyone who reads this feels like wasting a few minutes, I'd like to end this monotonously lengthy post with a request for the aforementioned people: If you have a favorite group or singer who you fell in love with, I'd love to hear about it. It's sort of like a science empiriment for me. I'd just like to observe whether this whole "love at first listen" thing is, A) a product of my insanity and pretty much limited to being something that only I experience, or B) something that happens to a lot of people at some point or another. So, if you have any interest in proving my sanity, go ahead and tell me about your musical love story.