Music Consumption
Music has always been important to my mom—she is a singer and songwriter—but I never caught the bug. Music was not something I was interested until I entered college. Before then, I liked music that other people liked. The first time I can remember owning a cassette was when I was in the fourth grade and had gone to a family friend’s birthday. There, I won a Richard Marx singles tape of “Right Here Waiting.� I had not known who he was, but because I had won it, I liked it and enjoyed it—although I don’t remember what happened to the tape.
The next cassette I ever really listened to was a Paj Zaub Lawj cassette. She was a singer from Laos and sang about men who lied to women. She was the most popular singer that year—I was in the ninth grade. With this one, I don’t quite remember if it was because she was popular that year, I was in a stage in my life where I hated boys or that I just listened to her way to much when working at the flea market selling her tapes. In the end I moved on to something else.
The next time I purchased any recorded music was in 2000. N*Sync was one of the most popular boy bands at this point—even surpassing Backstreet Boys (in my eyes). The first time I had ever heard or saw them was on the Disney channel doing a concert. I was watching my little brother Peter—he was one years old and I was still in the ninth grade. This was a time in my families life that we still had cable—I think this was the last we had cable in our home and my last year in California. Back to the story, my little brother and I were watching the concert when all of a sudden, he got up off my lap and started trying to imitate the dance moves that N*Sync was doing. From there, I associated N*Sync with little brother. So moving a couple of years ahead to 2000, I was ready to purchase my first CD. I had never owned a CD before—but this was not going to be my personal CD. My sister and I worked together at Burger King and were going to purchase the CD together. I was very proud of that CD—and from there on only bought CD’s. What I didn’t know was I was not going to buy many more CD’s from then on. Up to this point, I had only liked what popular culture liked.
It was when I moved to Irvine, CA for college, that things changed. I had unlimited internet access—which I had never had before—and control of my own time. This was a time when illegal music downloads were very popular. Music was shared on websites and through chats. Through the internet, I explored varying musical interest and found that I liked music from international artists. I listened to Ireland’s Westlife and KPop. There was Jinusean’s cover of the Begee’s “How Deep is Your Love� and anything SES.
Now as I think about it, I believe that with more access to the internet, I was able to explore my musical tastes. Prior to that, my musical tastes were determined by the radio. But, maybe I would still like the same kind of musical I did, had I had more access to music. Honestly, I don’t know. If somebody introduces it to me and I like, I hold onto it. But I do know that I am embarrassed to admit that I like pop music—and I don’t know why I should be.