Saturday, January 6, 2007

Soundtracks

I just signed up for "History and Significance of the Blues" at the New School's Continuing Ed program for the spring semester. My first choice, Jazz and its Roots in America, was all full. The professor of the jazz course is David Bindman, one of the coleaders of the Brooklyn Sax Quartet. I was looking forward to the jazz class because it looked at jazz in a holistic context, relating it to the politics, economics, and literature of the times. I hope a spot opens up so I can get into it.

But having signed up for this class, I started thinking about how my own musical tastes, or at least what I predominantly listen to, has changed over the years.
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In junior high, it was pure top 40, just loving the music. In high school, it was all classic rock, a form of my rebellion and alienation. By college, rebellion and alienation joined with bravado, sex, politics, and at times, rage when I was all about hip-hop and rap.

As law school approached, I started integrating more world music, traditional Indian music, and gospel - as I was probably seeking some peace, tranquility, and divine intervention in getting me through those years.
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After graduating from law school, I seemed to graduate to more dance tracks, reggae, soca, dance hall as I was liberated from my law school trappings. Karaoke was a lot of fun back then. Next was alternative rock, grunge, electronica - music with more "noise", I think. It seemed to match my emotions dealing with depression. I used to listen a lot to WLIR, 92.7.

Through these years, I listened to all of the above in different amounts, but it seemed that I gravitated to certain genres more during certain times.

Now that I am married with a daughter, I somehow finding myself listening to more folk:
WFUV, 90.7, is a great station, which I basically turned to after WLIR closed up shop.

I listen now a lot to Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash as I would describe myself in a period of irony.
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My favorite group all these years is U2. They more than any band for me actually stretches or stretched at different times to cover a good portion of the different genres: classic rock, the politics and outrage of hip-hop, alt rock, electronica, folk, and country.

They seemed to be able to crystallize how my soul feels at different times, and I guess that's what makes them great.In any event, I find it interesting how the music we listen to during different times is a mirror of our emotional, psychological, and soulful lives.