“Think of all the songs you have listened to all your life. Popular music is the soundtrack of our individual lives. Anything that ever happened to you, good or bad, was scored with the music you listened to. I’m not sure that’s happening to today’s generation.” - Dick Clark
You just turned 16 and you finally got your driver’s license. You’re free. The day is beautiful; the windows are down. The red light turns green just as the perfect song starts to play…
You’ve just had your heart broken for the first time. You’re out for a drive to clear your mind. Something on a billboard reminds you of her. Everything reminds you of her. And then the perfect song comes on…
It’s your first job interview. You are nervous. But there’s that one song that’s like an old friend. It puts you at ease. It gives you energy…
It’s like a movie soundtrack, but it’s the soundtrack of your life.
My life is filled with moments punctuated by music. From my earliest childhood, music was ubiquitous. My mother sang all the time. I think she has about every hymn memorized and was always singing. As far back as I can remember, my dad has been in the church choir. My sister is a talented piano player and singer. In school she played clarinet. My brother was an athlete, but he loves listening to music as much as we do. My dad exists because of my grandparents love of music. Grandma taught piano, organ, voice, and accordion. Grandpa was the same but for accordion. They were both talented musicians. But Grandma was from a different planet. Notes on the page were more of a suggestion to her. I’m not sure she ever played anything the same way twice. She was special.
Grandma and Grandpa met because of music. The story goes that my grandpa was on a work-study program at college. One day he was tasked with washing windows and while he was working a young lady came into the room and began to play a piano. He was blown away by her beauty and talent and had to meet her, but rather than introduce himself, he left. You see, he was afraid he would get into trouble by being alone in the same room as a girl. But eventually they did meet, and courted, and ultimately married. I love music.
When I was 3 or 4 years old, I begged for a guitar. My dad insisted to my mom that he was getting me one for Christmas. I loved it, but I didn’t learn to play it. When I was 5 my parents started me out with violin lessons. Later I took piano lessons. My sister and I were in children’s choir as soon as we were old enough. I played the trombone in elementary school band. I can play the bass guitar fairly well. In college I played the cowbell and tambourine in a New Orleans style brass band. Lately I’ve been learning to play the trap set. When I was 14 years old I remembered that old guitar. A friend taught me a few chords and I was hooked. I wrote my first song that day with the 2 chords I knew. Since then, I’ve written and recorded 4 albums of material. I’ve worn out a couple guitars and filled a bunch of notebooks with sad sappy lyrics, but it never gets old to me.
My oldest friend and I were in children’s choir together. We tried to start a band. We tried to start another band. And we ended up joining an established band that wasn’t half bad. I went and messed that up, but that’s a story for a different day. We also were part of the worship team for youth group, and for church services. He went off to university to be a music major as a woodwinds player focused on clarinet. With nothing else to do, I followed him there and became a jazz guitar major. I had never listened to jazz, but the other option was classical, and I didn’t own a classical guitar. I was there long enough to realize that I was never going to be a professional guitar player. And long enough to make some of the best friends one could ever have – each of them were music majors. Today I refer to these people as my chosen family.
I love music.
And really, who doesn’t? If you think about it, even the very oldest people alive today grew up with radio broadcast. In today’s world of competing streaming platforms, it’s hard to comprehend a time when music was only available live. The days of gathering as a family to sing on the front porch in the cool of the evening are long gone. And what has replaced it? Noise canceling headphones. Today’s hit songs are a cornucopia of artists featuring artists with a guest appearance by another artist… Today music is basically disposable. This is not a lament. This is not an ol’ curmudgeon longing for the “good ol’ days.” But perhaps we’ve lost something of the specialness of music along the way?
So, what is this about? Why take the time to write this down? I didn’t come to love music in a vacuum. It was gift that was given to me. In turn, I hope to awaken, reawaken, or reinforce your love of music. This is the story about how I tried to create The Best Playlist Ever™. There are some fits and starts, a few rabbit trails, a lot of frustration, a bunch of excel spreadsheets, and couple worn out disc drives.
This is the soundtrack of my life.
"I love music. And really, who doesn’t?"
Perhaps I'm just too cynical, but... I'm not sure most people care about music at all. Personally, I can see a future where people look back and laugh at us for actually caring about the background noise to whatever media they're consuming at the time.
In my experience it feels like people care more about everything surrounding the music than the music itself — right down to what liking any particular artist says about you... which is why we don't really talk about separating the artist from the art anymore. The only thing people seem to care about anymore *is* the artist — who is likely little more than a puppet following the directions of a team of people telling them what to do/say/think/wear/sing/dance/promote (particularly the most popular artists).
I'm not sure why the general public still sees musicians as being more insightful or intelligent than the average person — many times they're total idiots merely following a script. They're little more than actors being used to sell merch and political ideas.
Tyler the Creator is a great example of this: over the last several years all of his output has been nothing but ads for luggage (and nail polish, and other various items all unrelated to music) — and no one seems to have any issue with it... because it's Tyler. What? I feel like that would be the end of an artists career any other time, but today no one cares... because it's not the music anyone cares about — it's the artist and the idea that liking said artist is actually a virtue (i.e. all those positive characteristics of the artist that make people love them somehow get applied to you simply because you're a fan of "their" work).