My Musical Perspective

Music is an art that people relate to, something that makes us feel, it is a form of expression that can define who you are. Some music makes you believe something, makes you think on a level you never thought you could. My love of music, is very hard to define. I love all kinds of music, on a scale that some might say is very wide. Growing up I learned very quickly people tend to latch onto the main stream music scene and don't seem to understand others likes and dislikes. I get that, because I don't understand how the top trending artists on YouTube are Cardi B, and Tekashi 6ix9ine. I don't get that because that isn't for me, 6ix9ine especially I don't know how anybody likes that person at all.

Now I do get that, every generation doesn't get the ones that follow, my father doesn't understand rap after the eighties. That's fine and growing up I knew that he hated it and that kind of fueled my like for nineties and 2000's hip-hop and Rap scene. I grew up loving, Eminem, Jay-Z, Biggie Smalls, Tupac, 50 Cent, Kanye West, etc, was it to annoy my father? To an extent yes, but it also was what I actually enjoyed more than anything at that time. However because of my love for professional wrestling and in those years of them using hard rock, nu-metal, metal and the alternative style to promote their shows, I also grew to love, Saliva, Limp Bizkit, Kid Rock, Three Days Grace (the original version), Rise Against, Shinedown, Puddle of Mudd, Metallica and Rage Against the Machine, and those bands expanded my like for all of that kinds of music.

As I got older, more so into my twenties more then anytime of my life, bands like, Black Sabbath, Nirvana, The Offspring, Alice in Chains, Twisted Sister, Blue Oyster Colt, Stone Temple Pilots, and the list goes on. Now entering my thirties, in two weeks, I can't see myself not loving these bands. So to think that growing up wanting my parents to hate my likes of music, sometimes you just can't not grow to love what they love. Now, Metallica, Nirvana, Rage Against the Machine, just to name a couple are three of my favorite bands ever, and I can see myself seeing those bands with my father.

I'm really upset I never got to see Nirvana before Kurt Cobain died, he died before I was of age, and before I understood anything, but listening to his music makes me feel, because he wrote about a lot of what he was feeling at the time, and to listen to that and feel it myself, I don't know why I connect to him and Nirvana on the level that I do, but that alone made my love for grunge, and alternative rock. Some people don't understand that, some of my closest friends don't understand my love for Nirvana and that's fine.

To further describe my wide variety of music fandom, I also grew up loving punk, and the punk-pop genre. Fall Out Boy is one of my favorite bands ever, and I tended to gravitate to that band more then anyone of that genre as well as Sum 41 who I grew up with as well and tended to agree with a lot of their music again something I was able to feel. Also bands like Green Day, Bowling for Soup, Good Charlotte, All-American Rejects, Simple Plan, and Blink-182 (just to name a few), were a big part of my teens. So you can definitely see my wide variety of music that I love.

At the same time, my love for Metal, Hard Rock, and Grunge now more then ever, being very evident throughout my adult life, I will gravitate towards anything that I find interesting, I've never been that person that only listens to one type of music (as you can tell), you have to be able to understand other peoples favorites to and even though I will never understand the love for Cardi B and 6ix9ine at all, because again I don't think I'm supposed to, I can and do understand the likes of Billie Eilish, Katy Perry, and Kesha for example. Now even though I get the love for those acts, the thing I don't get is people who only listen to that type of music. For some reason, pop, hip-hop, and rap, are the main stream, when it shouldn't be that way at all. Why isn't their a main stream for Metal and Hard Rock?

Is it because the new generation is at the forefront of the YouTube world? Is it because TikTok is connected to the current generation and doesn't get that type of music? To put this into perspective the newer generation isn't growing up how I grew up, that's why award shows, and YouTube and this internet world we live in doesn't recognize Metal or Hard Rock as the music of this generation, it isn't considered main stream to like that music or use it to promote things. Will this change probably not, there isn't going to be a "renaissance" because today's generation isn't going to grow up seeing rock music as the genre that defines them. The new Metallica album isn't gonna win album of the year whether it deserves to or not for example, because the people that would vote for that aren't going to. Music is a huge part of the lives of all of us, and everyone should start widening their horizons and give some music a chance that they wouldn't before, stop latching on to one genre, and try to build a respect for other people, and for what they like.