Learning to love certain bands/albums

I learnt to love jazz through a school friend who I would go see play out of respect for our friendship, rather than because I enjoyed what was played. Indeed, I didn’t like it at all to begin with. I think I kind of forced myself to tolerate it, but even then didn’t really like it that much. But over the years, I kept coming back to jazz, and now it is probably one of my most favourite genres.

Similarly, I tended to ignore hip hop for many years, and though I liked the odd song, I didn’t really think much of it, and succumbed to the opinions of my peers who were completely dismissive of it, to the point where I didn’t listen to any of it at all, and disparaged it. I’m embarrassed now by that, but I know I was just trying to find peer acceptance in a world I always felt left out of. Ironically it took someone not anywhere near the hip hop world, David Bowie, to turn my views around, and let me learn to love hip hop, too. Rage Against the Machine no doubt helped, too.

I think I’ve said often enough about my aversion to extreme metal, and how repeated listens to Opeth allowed me to learn to love those sub-genres of metal. But Korn were the first band that really pushed my metal boundaries, as I never really listened to anything that heavy. Their first album was the heaviest thing I had ever listened to, and I still don’t know what possessed me to buy it, because I know I hated it at the time. I think I might have just wanted something I could play loud to annoy my parents. 🤷🏻‍♂️

I used to be the sort of person to say that I liked music but not particular genres. Now I will never suggest I don’t like a genre, because chances are there will always be something in any genre that I enjoy. The majority of country music does nothing for me, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t something in there that I don’t think it actually quite great. There is still more hip hop that doesn’t do much for me than that which I like, but so what? A lot of mainstream pop (throughout the years, and now - since what is pop/ular changes as much over the years) does nothing for me, but there are some artists who I think are great.

I think the biggest learning to love for me, has just been that there will always be something to love, and to learn to be more tolerant.

Last year’s release of this great concert is well worth a listen. See what you think of it!