Life After The Stones

A friend of mine went to a Sevendust concert this weekend – now this is a band that is generally loud and falls into the genre of music that this friend would typically like. However, he ended up not really enjoying the show, and said that he thinks he is getting too old for this.

It got me thinking. There was a time, when I would only really listen to the Stones, The Who, and some selected classic rock. This was basically high school through college, for me. Prior to high school and middle school, I listened to pop music, which included such musical stalwarts as Kool and The Gang, Lionel Richie, and Nena.

Thankfully, a middle school bud rescued me before Janet Jackson could claw her way into my soul, and introduced the Rolling Stones to me. I was immediately hooked, after hearing the addicting piano intro to “Let’s Spend The Night Together,” and immediately tried to soak up all the Stones music, like a sponge. Luckily for me, the Stones have a vast library of music – so it has taken me a long time to search and find all of their music (a task I probably will never finish).

However, this task retarded my musical growth. I am not saying that the Stones are not musically talented and diverse – I think they are the most diverse rock band of all time (as well as the best). However, the sheer excellence of the Stones would keep me from experimenting with other music throughout high school – and through most of college.

However, beginning junior year, I began to musically thaw, thanks to the wide-ranging musical tastes of my college roommates. My world began to appreciate other types of music – alternative, heavy metal, industrial, rap – and I began to slowly thirst for this. Now, this was a very slow process, mind you. I didn’t just open-up and gorge myself on these various new (to me) musical genres.

In fact, I don’t think I truly 100% opened up until just a few years ago. I began to openly search for new music – finding bands like the Strokes, The Killers, The Bravery, Hot Hot Heat, The Rakes, The Capes, Franz Ferdinand, The Automatic, The Vines, and the Hives – just to mention a few. Maybe it’s just that I’m enjoying the current garage-rock phase.