A Musical Awakening
Before my first "musical awakening", music was something I could take or leave; it didn't hold a place in my life because, frankly, the shit that I listened to was...shit.
C&C Music Factory
Vanilla Ice
MC Hammer
The first CD I ever bought was Vanilla Ice's "To The Extreme" album that came with my Columbia House subscription; one of those "Eight CDs for one price!" deals. I bought a handful of crap albums to round out my membership. It was a low point in my music-listening career.
But then one afternoon in '94, my cousin, Steve popped in Soundgarden's "Superunknown" on his CD player while we were playing catch in his backyard.
It blew me away.
I immediately went out and bought the CD and listened to it for days on end. Now this was music. From there I discovered and fell in love with other bands from that era -- Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins -- and suddenly, my awkward adolescence had meaning. In later years, various individuals would introduce me to musicians like Ben Folds and David Gray. Not exactly the same genre, but musicians who put everything they had into their music. And the result was mindblowing.
Now I can't imagine life without music. Hard to believe it was once an afterthought.
*Thanks to
tamalesofyore for inspiring this post.
C&C Music Factory
Vanilla Ice
MC Hammer
The first CD I ever bought was Vanilla Ice's "To The Extreme" album that came with my Columbia House subscription; one of those "Eight CDs for one price!" deals. I bought a handful of crap albums to round out my membership. It was a low point in my music-listening career.
But then one afternoon in '94, my cousin, Steve popped in Soundgarden's "Superunknown" on his CD player while we were playing catch in his backyard.
It blew me away.
I immediately went out and bought the CD and listened to it for days on end. Now this was music. From there I discovered and fell in love with other bands from that era -- Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, The Smashing Pumpkins -- and suddenly, my awkward adolescence had meaning. In later years, various individuals would introduce me to musicians like Ben Folds and David Gray. Not exactly the same genre, but musicians who put everything they had into their music. And the result was mindblowing.
Now I can't imagine life without music. Hard to believe it was once an afterthought.
*Thanks to
tamalesofyore for inspiring this post.