My Music Evolution
I owned a brown and orange plastic record player. I had records that would play nursery rhymes or children’s songs. I would listen to a song until I knew the words by heart and then I would run around the house reciting them over and over again. Some of it was because I thought I was a singer back then, but most of it was because I really wanted to annoy my older sister. As a younger sibling, I took great pride in being able to bug and frustrate Jessie. She was four years older and had no time for me but with my record player, I got her attention . Of course, being noticed also meant getting made fun of and beaten up a bit but I also got to become a fly on the wall and soak up all things older.
It was probably the late eighties and Jessie finally had gotten her own bedroom in the basement and I was still stuck sharing a room with our younger sister Katie. Jessie was in middle school sports and often times would not be home right after school and I always snuck into her room and to go through all of her tapes that she was listening to. I remember seeing AC/DC, Poison and Billy Idol. All tough rock! I would listen to a few songs on her giant black boom box; always remembering to rewind the tape back to the exact spot. At school the next day, I would wait until the sixth graders were in the bathroom talking about boys and teachers and finally music. I remember one time, Stacy Pettis was talking about AC/DC, I was washing my hands and I looked up. “AC/DC, I listen to them.� They turned to look at me and I could feel my face turn red but for my gutsy interruption I got them to say, “Cool.� That was it. The conversation was over, but to have sixth graders talk to me, a third grader, made my day. It wasn’t soon after that I started to beg for a boom box of my own. I had long forgotten the record player and had moved on to the family stereo, but now I needed something of my own.
My next form of technology was a boom box. I had saved up from helping my mom in the house (our home was also gendered) and my dad around the house and was able to buy a metallic red two cassette, one record and one play, boom box. One problem though. Now that I had the coolest radio/cassette player, I didn’t have any cassettes. In no way shape or form was Jessie letting me listen to her tapes and I had just spent my money on the boom box. Now what? Thank god for mothers! My mom took me to the public library where you could check out cassette tapes and check them out I did. The very first one was Cher and soon I was moving on to Gloria Estafan, Tiffany, Debbie Gibson, and Madonna. My mom would get blank tapes and using my dual cassette player I would pirate the songs.
Eventually I moved on to the portable tape player and finally the CD player. And once again I was stuck not having any CD’s to listen to. This time it was different though. Jessie was not a big spender on objects that weren’t clothes and so my listening selection was limited to whatever my dad could find on super clearance in the entertainment section. Then I got a job and the first CD I bought with my very own money was Queen. It wasn’t something new or even on the radio, but I heard them on the Mighty Ducks movie and instantly wanted that song. Same thing happened with the movie Material Girl and Madonna (movies and music, hmmm). My music collection soon expanded to everything and anything from TLC to Coolio (Dangerous Minds) to Bob Dylan. A pattern was set. The majority of my CD’s were from groups that I heard on a movie or were the movie soundtrack. I started to listen to all types of music from country, folk, and rock to reggae, blues, and jazz. If you read off the names of my CD’s it probably started to read like the wiki article on American Popular Music.
Currently, I don’t own an iPod, docking station or an online account at iTunes. I’m still go to the library to get CD’s and when I’m in the mood for something off beat, I turn on 89.3. Still a former coworker once said it best. “If my life was a movie, it would have a kick ass soundtrack.�