What If This Guy Liked Your Music?

Have you ever had a song or band ruined for you? When you discover a band, and then everyone else starts to like them, they play them on the radio, and it’s no longer you’re little secret. When a friend starts to like your favourite band and always plays them when they give you a ride and annoyingly sings along to the lyrics. When a dance song you think is decent it played relentlessly EVERYWHERE, on the radio, in the shops, at the clubs, and then, the ultimate song sacrifice, in a car commercial. When the ‘wrong’ sort of people start liking the music you do. When you’re mom pokes her head in the door and says, “oh, what’s this?’ you’re immediate reaction is to turn it down, but no, “I kinda like it.”

This has happened several times for me, most recently with The Black Keys, I liked them first, when they were nobodies, and now they’ve become, ugg, popular. Then there was Radiohead, when you could hear it playing in every college dorm, and then before that when my friend nearly stole Beck from me, playing Sea Changes on repeat whenever we hung out, and then there’s the horrors when I play Stevie Wonder or Billie Holiday and my mom will walk by and start bopping around, “this music just makes me wanna move.”

But in the end I always come back to them, although it’s annoying when other people can influence your appreciation for a band, it’s ultimately what drew you to the music in the first place that will remain true. So while hipsters may have ruined shopping at thrift stores and collecting vinyl records, they’ll never take my Morrissey.