Music Blog #3

I don't remember much of my life before middle school, but for some reason listening to old music with my father has always been an exception to that rule. I remember we would find an album from his childhood, and listen to it on repeat for a month or two before moving on to the next. We would do this until we had listened to everything a band had to offer, and then we would decide which songs we thought we would always enjoy, and add the best ones to a playlist he created. My father and I would repeat this process for eleven months a year, making any necessary adjustments as we went along (Naturally, we had many playful debates over whether or not it was fair to include every song by U2.) Then, every December, we would bring out the music collection we had edited and worked on all year, and listen to every song we had included over the course of the month. I remember one year I insisted we listen to extra David Bowie and almost caused us to run out of time for all the other music we had compiled. When my mother left the room for a while or was out doing errands, we would grab the nearest phone, connect it to the speaker in the living room, and do our best to get through the remaining music. We had worked our way through about ninety percent of the music we arranged, and were considering throwing in the towel for the year. That was, until my father realized just how much U2 was left. New Years that year wasn't about party games or delicious treats. It was about calculating what time we needed to start playing our music if we wanted to finish the collection before the year was over.

This process continued between just my dad and I for a couple of years. However our duo quickly made an exception for a third when my mother introduced me to the Eagles. After listening to Hotel California on repeat for a few hours, I knew we made the right choice when we accepted her into the group. The guitar solos featured in many of their songs were so expertly crafted and finely tuned that the guitar solos alone could pass as top tier music. I had always admired the rhythms brought to the table by the Beatles and their guitar playing, but going from a Beatles guitar solo to an Eagles guitar solo was like walking out of kindergarten and into a warzone. Less than half of their most famous song Hotel California is actual singing, and yet it still packs more emotion and tension than ninety percent of songs I've heard. It somehow manages to portray a narrative with as much emotional weight as a movie or novel without skimping out on the actual music. The guitar itself seems to be a part of the story as it plays a fittingly chilling tune that you'll be humming it for weeks if you dare to listen to it more than once. Their threats of physical violence towards each other while on stage were definitely... questionable, but listen to their music for an hour or so and you'll understand why I love their guitar as much as I do.

When I started attending Uni High, my music taste did a complete 180 for a while. I began listening to Heavy Metal like it was going out of style and for a while it was as if I had completely sworn off every other genre of music for some unknown reason. It started off with Led Zeppelin, so not completely absurd in comparison to my previous tastes. But then Led Zeppelin turned into AC/DC, and just when it looked like things were going to return to semi-normal, I heard Mick Gordon's incredible Heavy Metal Soundtrack for the Doom franchise. There were no words, but just like the Eagles, his music found other ways to send a message. In Mick's case, it was creating the most intense riffs imaginable to get your adrenaline pumping. Trying to get me to stop listening to Mick Gordon was like trying to convince my father that it was possible to stay awake past 8:00. And once again, just when it seemed like my tastes would go back to normal any day, the successors to Mick Gordon, David Levy and Andrew Hulshult, released their new music. David Levy's Immora guitar riff was enough to convince me Elton John never even existed. I listened to it on repeat for months and I likely wouldn't have stopped if I hadn't realized that eventually I'd ruin the riff for myself if I listened to it too much. I may not spend every waking moment listening to and worshipping the work of Gordon, Hulshult, and Levy like I used to, but that won't stop me from obsessing over their work every time I hear the words Heavy Metal. Fun fact, the Doom community enjoyed their work so much and thought the riffs were so intense that they labeled their work "Super Heavy Metal." After spending an unholy (Doom pun intended) amount of my summer listening to their work, I can confirm that if anything, that title undersells their work. If you have ever thought to yourself, “Hey, I want to hear what it sounds like when a guitar has ten strings, each of which were made just for heavy metal, and I want the sound to go along with a game where I tear through hordes of hellspawn as a man who is literally too angry to die.” I highly recommend the work of David Levy and Mick Gordon.

Recently, my father and I have started listening to music together again, even if we are too busy to do it more than once a week. About a month or so ago, he introduced me to the odd masterpiece that is O Superman by Laurie Anderson, and since then I've introduced him to some of my new favorites by The Animals, George Harrison, Johnny Cash, and a few other artists. In fact, just the other day I found out he somehow hadn't heard the Abbey Road medley before. After I had stopped stuttering in disbelief, I insisted that we listen to it together at least twice. He now wonders how he lived without the album, and I am very happy I was able to introduce it to him. We scarcely get to listen together, but I will always enjoy listening with him while I can.