my music taste & how i listen to music

there are many people that say they "listen to a bit of everything," and sure, a number of those people mean it. i'm one of that number that means it. but allow me to elaborate; i grew up with more 'obscure' bands like the Talking Heads, Gomez, and The Gorillaz, as well as XTC & (early) Mumford and Sons. Tom Waits is a favorite of my friends sam & raindog, and not a favorite of mine because i got fucking sick of the guy after hearing him so much as a child. no offense to sam, raindog, or Mr. Waits. that was my parents' music, my sister was playing things like Bat For Lashes, Lana Del Rey, Marina / and the Diamonds, (early) Panic At The Disco, Belle & Sebastian, and the Dirty Projectors. and on the radio, i was hearing the usual early 2000s & 2010s tunes, plus hits from the 70s-90s courtesy of one specific station that i don't remember the name of. growing up, i didn't really *have* "my music." well, i sort of did. i really loved the Talking Heads & the Gorillaz especially, don't get me wrong, but i also liked the pop hits that would play on the radio. not all of them, but some of them, and even those few that i thought were good were either turned off or made fun of by the rest of my family. we were a "sophisticated, liberal household," "there will be no pop or punk or pop-punk or rap (god, my mother hated & still hates rap) or electronic for you, benny." at least, i didn't really get into that stuff - i didn't have the personal collection, space, nor headphones, nor permission to get into that stuff - until later. i used to be a bit of a dick about music, because i was taught to be; i was taught to be very judgmental of, like, punk, rock, and rap especially. if you look up rock bands active and/or prevalent in the early 2000s & 2010s, i think only three or four made it into my household (those three or four being The White Stripes, Arctic Monkeys, Green Day, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers), as selective as everyone else was. everything else on that list was either directly called out as "bad" (like Linkin Park) or just something we ignored (which means i've never heard it, like with, say, MCR). the first song i listened to that *really* broke through what my family thought was likeable or even okay was the tune-yards. i listened to the song "water fountain," loved it, showed my father, he didn't mind it so much, he even thought it was fun, but i showed my mother and to this day i don't play them much out of habit even though they're one of my favorites because she fucking hates them. every time i put them on, she has me turn them off. that was it for a while. i was allowed to listen to "calmer" electronic music, sometimes, like Christine and the Queens (now Rahim Redcar) or BORNs. but that wasn't rebellious at all, or truly mind-blowing. the song "Futurephobic" by Frankie and the Witch Fingers was both. i obsessively repeated "Mary On A Cross" by Ghost after my ex left me (so, two years ago?), and late last year i discovered bbno$. a bit later, i found Hatsune Miku and other vocaloids, and then KMDFM and femtanyl. i've also started listening to Arctic Monkeys again, this time with greater intent. and just recently, i've fallen in love with Elaine With Well Wishes. well, and rebetiko, which is my people's "outlaw music," the most badass of all. lastly, i've been challenging myself to listen to whatever the hell my friends send me, even if they think i won't like it. obviously, i've discovered & listened way more music than all that i've listed, but hopefully, this is *representative* of my journey to find "my music."

as a kid, CDs were the only thing we had. that, and iTunes. and then iTunes became Apple Music, but by then, my family had switched to Spotify, which i used across multiple accounts until i found out you could listen to music on Youtube, and i began using that for years straight because there were less ads than on Spotify. late last year & this year, i've switched back to CDs now that i have a CD player -- and an MP3 player. god, i love those things (click here if you want to see my models and/or how i've decorated them). as i began using my PC more (i originally *just* used it for gaming, and hadn't customized it all until this year, ha!), i discovered that the MP3 files i downloaded for transferring onto my MP3 could be listened to via the Media Player that was a part of the computer the whole time. cool. cool as fuck. and honestly, which method i use to listen to music - whether on CDs, on Youtube, Spotify, or my local files and/or MP3 player - depends on my mood, because they all have something different to them. i use my CD player when i either want to hear whole albums (because those are the only CDs i have) or i want to listen to the radio (because it can receive radio! i love radio!), which is honestly my preferred way to find new music i wouldn't normally hear. it's a very cool feeling, to not have any ads, and to know you're doing it the "dumb" "low-tech" way on purpose. similarly, i use my MP3 player when i want to hear my favorite individual tracks, that i've downloaded. it's even smaller than the CD player, so it's even more portable. i'm either gonna have that or my phone on me when i go for walks or work on projects, 'cause it's a cute little gadget that fits in my hoodie pockets. i use Youtube or Youtube Music most of the rest of time, when i want to hear individual tracks i don't have downloaded, or when i want to find new music that sounds a lot like what i already know i like. especially when i'm at my computer all day, which unfortunately happens more & more often as my disabilities get worse. i rarely use Spotify, i think i only use it when i want to see what my friends are listening to or, y'know, for another one of their social gimmicks that only Spotify has (i also have Last.fm for that, but that's not really a streaming service) (i suppose i could take screenshots of my Youtube history or files and send those to friends, or lend my MP3 player to friends, and ask them to analyze it by their own eye, but what kind of friend would do that for me? i would never ask anyone to do that).

my process of what i do with a song as it becomes a favorite is usually as follows:

- keep track of it. if i heard it on the radio, i'm gonna look it up. if i heard it on Youtube or Spotify, i'm gonna give that track a 'like' so it's stored on my profile

- i'm gonna listen to it a few more times wherever i first heard it, both inevitably and to ask myself, how much do i really vibe with it?

- if i vibe with the song a lot, i'm gonna copy the link from Youtube (even if i heard it on Spotify first, it's a part of the trick), and head over to my jailbroken/indefinitely-activated MediaHuman Youtube to MP3 app (i don't know or remember how to get it to be this way myself, i'm sorry, maybe it's something you can look up), and then i hit the "Paste Link" button, and it starts to download to my local files. from there, i drag it over to the Music Center for PC app

- and then i connect my MP3 player to my PC with the cable that came with it (the player, not the computer), and then hit "transfer"

and that's it!

eventually, i want to either learn how to burn CDs or get a friend to do it for me, so i can have CDs of, say, my favorite tracks from a given year, or tracks that share genres. etc. i tend not to limit myself with this kind of thing. i also really want to do an MP3 player trade (player4player?), where i find a friend or friends with their own MP3 player and downloaded tracks, and we trade for a week or so, and just listen to each other's music & get to know each other that way, and maybe even download a few surprises for each other. i also want to get to know my own local music scene, even though i hate this city, just because maybe i'll be pleasantly surprised by an artist or two. but i also want to somehow get into the local music scene in Athens, Greece, because that's where i really want to be....i love music. i love art. i love people