Music I like is the music I decide is right for me. 

Is what I thought. 

Since I was little, piles and piles of music have been stored in my house and in my brain. From my Dad, I’ve gotten lots of “You have to listen to this… it’s classic,” or “I can’t believe I’ve never shown you this.” Over the years I have come to appreciate so many classic artists, for good reason. The reason usually being, my Dad is my Dad and he knows a lot more about good music than I. One of my Dad’s favourites, Guns N Roses, was a “no-brainer” for me to listen to in 8th grade, which was when I became obsessed with guitar and music after online school, and I then became engulfed with any music older than the 2000s. The power of influence is what first drove my passion and crave for music. 

Looking back, I grew a complex and came to the conclusion: anything digital is baloney. 

I was very into 70s music in 9th grade, and I thought it was so cool and esoteric to have a record player and vintage records, but not in a Lana Del Rey TikTok way, because of course enjoying anything that was popular in a way that was popular was just stupid and meant you were a sheep. 

Of course, I didn’t want to associate with anything near the online side of music. I refused to use Spotify for some reason, and I even thought that making playlists wasn’t the right way to listen to music, as artists usually intend the order of tracks on their album for the listener’s experience; therefore, I should only listen to albums in full length, not odd songs here and there on a random playlist, right? That would only be wrong. I thought the way that I, and only I, listened to music was superior, trying to internally deny the fact that I began to orchestrate the way I listened to music. Thinking to myself, everyone else around me got the entire “listening experience thing” wrong. If music made for listening was initially made physical, it must stay that way, especially if the world is going cuckoo and everything we do is online, online, online. I wanted to restart. I kept to myself about my music nerdiness in 9th grade, so I thought my complex was actually just me being different and oddly humble. But my humbleness was ironically rooted in my ego, pent-up from the cringe I internally forced myself to feel when I would hear a popular song on the radio or a reference to music I knew was known from TikTok. I forced myself not to enjoy anything mainstream or new, thinking I was better or different, even though I knew I liked those things. I tried to de-influence myself into restarting everything I knew about music. The power of “de-influencing” influence is what drove my weird attitude toward listening, and interpreting, and thinking about music. I was my own sheep. 

I think that my past desire to be maturely different was very immature. 

Without realizing it, I have presently become what I dreaded, and I am happier that way. Limiting oneself to enjoying certain things, especially when it comes to the world of music, is so pointless.

Music I like is the music that I have grown to love. And will grow into loving. Sometimes it’s what I already know I love. But I don’t limit myself only to what I know; music comes and goes, so I try my best to just listen in the moment. I like that it is always there for us to come back to, so what I’m trying to say is, just listen and let your true self feel it; don’t let your complex, whatever it may be, dictate how you’re “supposed to feel.” Music is beautiful in that way—it is for everyone at any point in their life somehow.

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