Checkpoint: My Eclectic Music Taste Edition

This week I realized that the music I listened to varied wildly depending where I was.

• At work, it was whatever was playing on Rdio’s “Chill Instrumental”.
• On the bus, it was instrumentals, synth and other video game related tracks found on my iPod Nano.
• At home, it was whatever was playing on Spotify’s 80’s hits playlist.

On Music With Lyrics

There was a very brief period in my life where I was in tune with pop music but I let it pass me by rather quickly. I was never able to keep up and stay engaged with 90’s music with lyrics unless it was incredibly catchy. I often found 80’s music were easier to listen to and because of that I gravitated towards a lot of the old hits regardless how cheesy or bad they were. The lines were often accompanied with a beat that I enjoyed.

Lately, I’ve been digging into some of the more iconic 80’s hits like Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A album. The catchier of the tracks were dissected with attentive listens and I would look up interpretations to see if they matched my own. I’m glad I wasn’t the only one to view “I’m on fire” as an older man lusting after an underage girl. Discovering “Born in the U.S.A” wasn’t a very patriotic song was also a mini-revelation.

Why Instrumentals?

Because it’s easy to just hook into the beat and let it take me on little journey or set me in an atmosphere. Since some of it is from video games, it’s also shorthand for “Remember when this happened in the game?”. I rarely get tired of repeated listens of an instrumental unless it contained grating bass beats.

Other genres?

I’ve revisited classic hip hop hits for exploratory purposes. I dabbled with whatever worldly music makes its way onto FIFA titles as well. On whims, I’ve tackled specific artists’ works in more depth but those were more concerted efforts and not what I would deem “part” of the regular rotation.

I’ve never taken music seriously as others and usually listen to whatever sounds good to me.

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With The Witcher 3 in limbo, I thought it was a good idea to try out the Street Fighter V Beta in between bouts of Rocket League and Contradiction. How’s it going? I’ve yet to throw a punch in Street Fighter V but I’m enjoying Rocket League and Contradiction immensely.