Hey hey, it’s MJ, 

            I mentioned in my last post that I was switching two so here is the other one. Hopefully not as long and rambling as most of my posts but we’ll see, now won’t we? I listen to a lot of music and I always have, music has gotten me through quite a lot in my life and for that I am thankful.

            So what do I listen to? 

            When I was a kid I listened to whatever my parents did and that was in a nut shell 90’s country on our local country radio station (which I did end up interning at in college), so I will always have a soft spot for 90’s country music, I still listen to country and I don’t understand why so many people vehemently hate it. Maybe because I grew up on it and grew up more in the country than in the city I understand it; when you grow up surrounded by corn fields sometimes that happens. 

            When I was old enough to choose my own music, early 2000’s pop so the boy bands, Brittany, Christina, lots of Disney music, and still in the car with my parents; country.

            As my music tastes evolved let’s say mid 2000’s, my middle school days I shifted my music tastes because I was “rebellious”, no I wasn’t really but my mental health issues started to rear their ugly heads at about this age and I really got into “emo” music, My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy, Avenged Sevenfold, (even though I don’t consider them “emo” I am still putting them in here to mention) Panic! At the Disco, (yes I put the ! in even though it doesn’t exist anymore) but a lot of that kind of music. I still listen to some of the bands that I did back then and feel that nostalgia for an easier time, like middle school was fine but high school was hell for me. I was a freshman in high school in 2006, that’s right this year is my ten year high school anniversary and I have not looked back since I walked across the stage at that place. Being in high school at that time though I saw the rise of the scene kids and let’s be honest to the mid-2000’s emo kids they (in my and some of my friends opinions) looked ridiculous. 

            While I was in high school I took Japanese, I love the language and culture and at the time I was much more into manga and anime than I am now because your tastes change over time but also at that point I listened to a lot of J-Pop because it was in at the time, nothing like K-Pop is to American audiences at the moment but I enjoyed it even though I couldn’t understand all of it and I can understand less now because I stopped practicing my Japanese, one of my goals for 2021 is to pick it back up, I have all my text books and everything.

            On to college! So I worked for our campus radio station and it was indie, like really indie but that meant that I listened to a lot of indie music in college because I basically lived at the radio station junior and senior year. I also listened to a lot of pop music, you are in a sorority and you listen to a lot of Top 40’s music. 

            Throughout time I have listened to 80’s music as well, it’s not a secret that I love 80’s rock music and some of my favorite songs to jam out to are from the 80’s, I blame it on Guitar Hero in the late 2000’s but I figured it needed its own little paragraph and because of streaming services like Spotify and Pandora I can listen to more than I would have in the past. 

            So what do I listen to now? The answer to that is pretty much anything. During this pandemic and subsequent quarantine when I have been spending an inordinate amount of time in my apartment I have kind of rediscovered my love for music, so lots of 80’s pop and rock music, lots of classical because that’s what I listen to when I really want to get work done or focus, some pop but not as much as I used to because a lot of the popular music that’s out now I am not a huge fan of. 

            There are some bands though that have stood the test of time or even have come into my life more recently that I consider my favorites. Marianas Trench which I have been a fan of for over a decade and have seen in concert twice, (would see them again but they don’t come to Arkansas and I get that) Panic At the Disco, I still love Panic and I think I always will, NSP (if you know, you know), My Chemical Romance, Def Leppard, Florida Georgia Line, and so a few others that take up space on my phone so I can listen to them in the car.

            I am still one of those people who buys CD’s and I know a lot of people who haven’t bought a CD since the early 2010’s, I like the physical copies and I always have but now that CD’s have become almost a thing of the past, my computer doesn’t have a drive for one and I haven’t since like 2013, my car doesn’t even have a CD player in it which is such a weird thing for me since I grew up with cassette players in the car until CD’s took over (I know I am aging myself, I was a child of the early 90’s, 1992 babies for the win!) 

            I am always open for suggestions on songs and bands to listen to, that’s how I have found some of my faves. I know that my music tastes may not align with everyone’s and guess what? That’s totally cool that’s why music is such a cool thing; there is so much of it to enjoy that you don’t have to like the same things as your friends but there is always something for everyone. 

            Well I think that I have rambled enough because I promised not to and guess what; I did anyway. But here is me signing off and I will see everyone mid-week with another post! Have a great start to the week! 

            -MJ