Linkin Park, The Ataris, Blink 182, Yellowcard, Rock Music. These are my favorite bands and genre of music that I enjoy listening to. These bands all have little quirks that set them apart from mainstream rock music. Linkin Park incorporates rap and electronic music into their records; Yellowcard has a violinist; Ataris are very acoustical based; Blink, well they are just exciting to listen to. But how did I come to this point in my life that these 4 bands are permanently locked into every playlist I own? To answer this, let us start with my youth.

Form the day I was born my Dad would only listen to 3 groups constantly: The Beach Boys, The Beatles, and The Eagles (I believe he has something for the word “The”). The Beach Boys were by far his favorite group, and he owned a few of their vinyl records. Yes, I said vinyl. During road trips in our old 80’s Chevy Astro mini-van, the greatest hits of The Beach Boys would be playing non-stop, flipping that cassette over every so often. Yes, I said cassette. By the age of 10 I had memorized the entire playlist with “Wouldn’t it be Nice” and “Good Vibrations” being my favourite tunes to sing along to.

During these years of listening to great 60/70s music icons, I was a member of the choir for my elementary school. It has been so many years that I cannot recall any of the specific songs that we sang, but our school participated in many completions around the North Okanagan district. We were not musical train, and I couldn’t even tell you what a key or note was during this time, but it was a rather enjoyable experience being able to sing with all your peers in front of a hundred people, or more. As funny as it sounds, choir is most likely the reason you will catch me singing in the shower every morning. Sadly, choir was not the “popular” thing for boys to be doing at that age and I soon dropped out and found a guitar.

For my sixteenth birthday, my Uncle – who played in a rock band with my other Uncle during their youth – brought me a baby blue, electric Fender Stratocaster. This was a beautiful instrument, and I was sure to get all the girls if I learned how to play this. I soon started taking lessons, though my first teacher was more interested in showing me how well he could play than he was in teaching me how to play well.  After moving onto a new teacher I came across a problem: I am double jointed in all my fingers. Having double jointed fingers is pretty neat, I can bend my fingers in all crazy ways, but when it comes to playing the guitar they are a disaster. Every time I try to switch from one chord to another my fingers would pop and lock, causing an extremely amusing visual to anyone watching, as well as a horribly frustrating barrier to learning guitar. The guitar is now located in my Father’s basement, locked away until perhaps my kids can jam away (assuming that do not inherit my fingers).

During my teen and guitar years, I started switching between many different genres of music. Rap, Hip-hop, Country, Punk, Heavy or Death Metal, anything seem to appeal to me besides boy bands. Between the ages of 14 and 19 I was finding a new style of music that I would obsess over for a period of time until a new style would pop up on the radio or be suggested to me by a friend. I went from trying to be the next Eminem to wanting to wear a cowboy hat and cry about my lady. My ears just could not make up their mind until around my early 20s.

After graduating from high school, working at the local grocery market, all my friends started heading off to where life was taking them. No longer being in that high school environment of trying to fit into whatever was popular at the time, a unique thing started to happen. New music would come and go. A lot of one-hit wonders started to happen in the 2000’s era of music. I personally found myself always falling back to the same few bands. I’d ride the wave of a new hit, but when it hit the point of no longer being a number one, I’d end up returning to the same music style, Rock. As my early 20s turned into my mid-20s, and now into my late 20s, I find myself less and less excited for new music and more content with listening to those same 4 bands mentioned earlier.

Now if we look back to what my Dad was listening to when I was a kid, it seemed that he too had developed this love of a certain number of bands and he could listen to repeatedly and continue to joining them like that were brand new every time he listens to them. Without even realizing this, I too have seemingly come to the point in my life where my choice of music is set in stone. What a curious situation. I now ask myself, “Will I be taking my kids on hover car road trips listening to Linkin Park on an iCloud stream?”