Music is a powerful tool, capable of cutting through language and cultural barriers. Yet, there are many individuals, like myself, who stay in their own little music box of genres and rarely leave the comfort of their box.
My music taste normally consists of 80's Glam rock, Metal core, and sometimes Indie rock when I’m feeling emotional. In order to take myself out of this Rock bubble, I contacted two of my classmates who have completely different taste in music than myself and I asked both to explain why they like the music they do and hopefully I will be able to find some common ground in music different than my own.
First up was K-pop. The student who taught me about this genre asked me to keep her name anonymous. She has a huge amount of respect and love for the popular boy band BTS because in addition to being very talented, all of the artists are huge advocates for publicizing self love. When I first heard their music, I wasn't able to appreciate the meanings of their songs until I read the English translations, which then revealed the songs' beautiful and powerful messages.
However, what really impressed me about BTS was that all seven members had extremely distinctive voices and still sounded wonderful together. The song that I enjoyed the most was definitely “Love Maze” because I was able to hear each artist's voice individually. Even though this is still not a genre that I would listen to very often, simply because I am not a big fan of very pop sounding music, I definitely have a new appreciation for K-Pop and BTS.
The next genre I was educated on was Country. When asking junior Morgan Lin what she found so great about this genre, she explained how every time she listens to a good Country song it makes her think of happy memories.
Lin stated, “Country music reminds me of sitting in the car while singing out loud with my friends.”
Once I begin to listen to Lin's song suggestions I definitely had a small urge to want to sing along in a car with her because of how catchy the majority of the songs were. One thing I learned is that there are different types of country music, and that every song doesn't have to sound like an old man playing a guitar while singing about America or picking up ladies in his pickup truck to be considered country.
I was also happy to learn that a lot of Country songs have similarities to classic Rock music. I found the most likability in the singer, Luke Combs, an artist who Lin strongly recommended. Combs’ voice has a really pleasing growl and many of his songs had some great guitar solos. I am proud to say that there is now at least one country song on my liked Spotify playlist.
This experience has definitely helped me broaden my music tastes and be more open minded towards different genres. It was also really interesting to hear people's reasoning behind why they enjoy the music they do.
