Travel Journal

I have noticed my taste in music has changed through the years, as I am sure many people have too. My first love was the music I listened to growing up. I was “Raised on Radio”, so I love 80’s music. And I still do. I reminisce in it, and my younger days. Then in late high school, I discovered Classic Rock. I heard rock from the 70’s before, but it was like a rebirth to me. Some songs I grow up loving, and others came back to me in a new appreciation. Classics like “American Pie”, and hits from Kansas were the theme songs of my high school career. I still love those two genres of the 70’s and 80’s.

I listened to some “other” music too, but not fanatically. Like the grudge of the 90’s (Nirvana, Pearl Jam), and Heavy Metal (Metalica), and some of the other depressing/teen anger music of the 90’s. Actually, I don’t care for some of the depressing/teen anger bands and their music, except for the Cure, but they were 80’s so they’re cool. I only later appreciate more of the music of the 90’s for their nostalgic value. Not that they had talent (though some musicians or songs were talented), but that their songs brought me back to the high school years.

Then the next genre I have noticed that I have been spending more time and money on are soundtracks. It started out with buying a soundtrack CD to every movie I own. Now, I don’t own many DVD’s, and I like it that way. And it just seems that when I own a movie, I grow so attach to the music, I had to get the soundtrack CD. Now, I get soundtracks to video games as well, and even for some japanimation or asian movies.

While music on the radio are full of emotions and inspiration, the music from a movie or a video game is like a novel compared to a poem. The radio music expresses a quick feeling, though deep, like a poem. But a movie/game that spends hours exploring an emotion or an experience that is then captured into a song, like how a novel takes it time exploring the human experience. So in listening to a soundtrack, it feels like you are living a lifetime of memories. You bring with it a life that was experienced throughout the movie.

Now, I am starting to think I have reached a new phrase in my music listening, which isn’t music at all…news radio. I have been a fan of non-fiction books more than fictional books, and it seems my music listening may have caught up to that too. Now I like to listen to news radio on the current issues in our society and our government. Radio broadcast like NPR and Focus on the Family are the ones I enjoyed. Basically I judge my listening preference by what I listen to in my car, and lately I have been tuning to news talk radio station rather than playing my CDs or Mp3’s. (I don’t listen to regular radio stations anymore really). So it would be interesting to see if this my latest craze in “music” and how long it would last.