My Musical Evolution

Were you a late bloomer to Top 40 radio, waking up to it well into your teens?

Maybe you had parents who were professional musicians, and it’s just always existed in your life? Or was it forced upon you as a younger sibling?

Was it a slow steady build… or was a particular song the equivalent of a young cinephile having their mind blown seeing Star Wars while still in preschool?

It’s a given that our collective lot of tnocs.com residents love music. But how did it evolve to be such an all consuming aspect of our lives? No doubt everyone’s origin story is unique. I figured that this would be a good excuse to evaluate my journey. Because honestly, I’d never really thought about it before.

My parents were not musical, but they definitely enjoyed music.

I don’t ever remember a radio not being on in the house as I was growing up. Whatever room we were in, the radio was on. I think in retrospect my mom preferred having the background noise, to make the house sound “fuller”.

The default station was the news radio channel, but I remember a lot of ‘dad rock’ music, Motown and 60s music, since that was their musical sweet-spot era. Not to mention my mom was Beatles fan and had all their albums and many of their 45RPM singles.

Thankfully, they had moved on from their hippie phase by the time I was born, so there was more variety, and not all Joan Baez and Bob Dylan, 24/7. But for as long as I can remember, music existed in our house, as natural as needing to drink water. I never considered life could exist without music.

In 1981, my parents purchased a new car after their previous one went kaput. And, Big Deal Alert:

it had a built in cassette player.

My parents were big on doing long drives on weekends, and drives to relative’s houses were often several hours, so they kept several cassettes in the car. As most of their music collection at that time was on vinyl, however, the selection of cassette titles were… kinda slim. So it was the same six cassettes or so just swapped out, for years.

But, in a way, it was good. Because it helped to shape my idea (as a 7 year old) of what I thought was “good music” and what I realized I REALLY didn’t like. And youngling Dutch realized pretty quickly that she was not a folk music fan. I have erected a mental block regarding Judy Collins’ songs, so aside from Send in the Clowns. I could not tell you anything about her work, but I don’t doubt for a second I’ll know every word, if her albums were played for me now. Nope. Slow, introspective music was definitely not my thing.

Dad had one tape in the car that was just his:

The Best of the Doobie Brothers. I would ask for that to be played every time I was in the car, just because it rocked (in comparison). No idea what Black Water was about, or where China Grove was. But hey, they thought Jesus Was Just Alright, and they sounded good when making that declaration.

Then they had this guy singing on some of the songs that was just mesmerizing, like, “how is a person able to sound that smooth and perfect while singing?” Michael McDonald did not seem human to my ears, even at a young age where I knew nothing about music. But, as I mentioned in the comments on mt58’s article the other week, he was like Steely Dan, where you just knew that this was some sort of masterclass talent at work. So, it’s very possible that Michael McDonald drove my lifelong attraction to singers with unmistakable timbres in retrospect.

But yeah… youngling Dutch would definitely perk up when the drums went boom, the bass would thunder and guitars would scream. That was my choice, from everything I had been exposed to at an early age, including my drama queen ‘woe is me’ fits, whenever they turned on the classical station – because those drums definitely did not go boom – unless it was the William Tell Overture, ha!

I recall one day in second grade, when a classmate brought his J Geils Band cassette into class, and a bunch of us gathered around the school’s big, clunky portable cassette player in the back of the room, jamming to Freeze Frame and Centerfold. I remember feeling so jealous of him that he had ‘real’ music, and a real music cassette, and how I wanted my own album of real music too. I did have records that were solely mine at that time, but they were mostly Disney Soundtracks… just not the same as the cool stuff I heard coming out of the radio.

That time finally came for me just a year later, when Thriller was released. Yep, that tidal wave was so huge it swept me up in it as well. The only cassette player in the house at the time was on the stereo in the living room, so whenever I found time I’d just sit down on the living room floor with headphones on and listen to as much of the album as I could. I finally had ‘real’ music of my own, and it felt AWESOME.

Shortly after getting Thriller my grandparents bought me my own portable cassette player, so I started taping songs off the radio with it. I don’t think it was much longer before I got my own radio in my room with a built in cassette deck to record directly off the radio.

First Walkman was soon after that – radio only, so it was a tiny thing, but it meant freedom for me.

I could disappear into my own personal headphone space whenever I wanted.

I think I got my first tape player Walkman in 1988 or 1989, and oh my God, it was so momentous. It was the equivalent of being given keys to a new car at 16.

I went everywhere with my Walkman, and by then all I cared about for presents from relatives was batteries (hooray for rechargeable batteries!!)

After Thriller, the next cassettes that I was fortunate enough to be gifted with were the Pointer Sisters Break Out, Whitney Houston’s debut, and Janet Jackson’s Control. I was definitely favoring mid 80s R&B at that time.

My Duran Duran enlightenment occurred during this time as well, but I actually didn’t own any of their albums until 1989’s Decade album. This all overlapped my first learning to play an instrument as well in late 1983, so I’m sure the thrill of learning to play fed my music obsession, and vice versa.

Because I had my own control over what I listened to, and had grown up with an open mind towards just appreciating anything that I enjoyed, I would just soak in everything up and down the dial whenever I tuned in to the radio.

The Philadelphia market had a massive overabundance of station varieties to choose from, it was fantastic. Power 99, Philly’s urban station, became a regular favorite on the dial for me and exposed me to the fantabulous world of rap music on top of all the R&B I was digging.

So when the Beastie Boys took our middle school by storm with Licensed to Ill, I was prepared.

And when glam metal then had our school in a chokehold by 1987 and totally made us slaves to that sound, it was like living a dream – pop mentality of hooks and melody over thumping bass, screaming guitars and drums going super-boom. What a great time to be 13 and hitting your musical obsession stride!!

So those early years totally set me on my musical journey that continues today. Thanks to Phylum’s recent encouragement, I’ve been setting my Pandora to “Classical For Relaxation” station a lot more here recently, and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at just how much I do recognize. I miss jazz (Orlando actually had a really great all jazz station in the 90s that became the default station for the living room stereo), and have been thinking of delving back into that again.

I try to keep an open mind with current Top 40 radio, but too much is stale at the moment, like innovation in music got stuck in a vinyl groove 12 years ago and it just keeps skipping with no real progress. It’ll come around though again, music always does.

So, I’d love to hear what your evolution journeys were…. and where you’d like to continue to next on your travels.

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