A Brief Musical History

It's interesting how listening habits change through time.  Back when I was at school, you were either a 'grunge' kid, although not actually grunge it was more 'nu metal,' or you listened to modern commercial r'n'b and hip hop.  The idea that you would listen to more than one type of music was just so incredibly incomprehensible that the people who did so were outcasted.  Then, gradually as we moved into years 12 and 13 people would start to broaden their horizons a bit and when requested to name musical interests on Facebook, would generally say, 'a bit of everything,' even though that only really meant anything you'd hear in any average 'student' club.

However, despite these declarations of liking everything, tastes were still pretty conservative as the 'grunge' kids had well and truly forgotten their roots and in some cases jumped off the music train altogether, and at the time, I saw no reason to be any different.  Gradually, I moved over into 'electro' thanks mainly to Justice, but I didn't really immerse myself in it.

Then, something wonderful happened, a Christmas miracle you could say.  Around Christmas time 2008 my cousin played a few tracks for me that just blew my mind.  They were the Erol Alkan's extended rework of 'Veronica's Veil', Aeroplane's remix of 'Paris' and 'Switchblade' by Heartsrevolution.  I just couldn't get enough.  It was at this stage that I realised that there actually is really good music out there, there was life beyond Radio 1!  So, I spend the next few months hunting high and low for music, reading blogs and such, but I was still fairly narrow minded.  It was only when discovering that electro demi-gods Busy P and DJ Mehdi cited credible rock bands and hip hop artists as influences whilst still making bangin' electro that I realised you are actually allowed to like anything you want. 




But, the greatest demonstration I have seen/heard of this was when I was at the Decked Out 10th anniversary party when Erol Alkan and Xavier De Rosnay were on the decks.  After getting ridiculously sweaty ravin' it up to some epic Justice tracks and other huge tunes for about an hour, on comes 'Roxanne,' and it went down an absolute treat.  The place went wild, no trace of people turning round to each other saying, 'what the f***!'  Everyone was just able to appreciate it for the good track it is.

However, not everyone lives by this philosophy.  It was our Halloween party, the stereos were hijacked by the girls, but I saw my opportunity to change the musical direction for the night and to my surprise and delight I saw that my housemate had a Late Of The Pier track, 'Broken' if you're interested, on her mp3 player, so I played it without delay, only for someone to say, ‘What is this shit?!'  My heart sank and I slowly proceeded to the drinks table to console myself.