By Jared Fast
Stuck in a Musical Rut
For most people, junior high and high school are their formative years when it comes to the type of music they listen to. For me that was the 90s, so I was a grunge rock kid through and through – Doc Martens, long hair, and oversized plaid shirt included. My view of the world was that if it didn’t have a guitar in it (preferably a distorted electric guitar), then it wasn’t really music.
Thankfully with age comes wisdom and over the years I expanded my view as I listened to jazz and classical music. But around five years ago in my mid-30s I realized that my musical tastes had been stagnant for a while. So I decided to explore electronic dance music (EDM). That’s about as far from grunge rock as you can get, and a 180 degree turn from my youth when I looked on EDM with disdain.
Where do I begin?
I wasn’t sure where to start. I talked to my hairdresser and she recommended a DJ named David Guetta so I bought his album “Listen” and loved it! It’s pretty poppy, so some people might not consider it true EDM, but I was a newb and it was a good start. I was vaguely aware that there was a genre of EDM called “House” so my next step was to go into HMV and buy a “Best of House” box set of four CDs. This set was disappointing. I found the music simple and a bit boring. I gave it a good try and listened to each of them several times, but I didn’t convert.
After this I was discouraged and gave up for a while and went back to my old music, flipping between rock, jazz, and classical stations on the radio. But commercials annoy me and around this time I converted to digital streaming. There are many good streaming services but I ended up on Spotify. I loved that for a small monthly fee I had unlimited access to a massive library of music. I could download an artist’s entire discography and if I didn’t like it, I could just delete it and move on. At first I explored classic rock, but I soon remembered my earlier interest in EDM and gave it another go.
The Power of Music to Connect
I vaguely recalled someone telling me once about a genre of music called “Trance” and so I checked it out. I found Armin Van Buuren’s weekly radio show A State of Trance where he serves up a weekly dose of the latest in Trance and Progressive EDM and I immediately connected with this music. Sometimes it has vocals, sometimes it is just instrumental so there is variety. Sometimes it has very slow, emotional parts, sometimes just hard driving rhythms.
I have a friend who was also spending more time listening to EDM around this time and it was great to have someone to swap tracks with and talk about what we were listening to. He would recommend artists to listen to and vice-versa. It gave us a reason to connect more regularly and I think strengthened our friendship. Music has such an amazing ability to connect people, to communicate and share ideas, and is truly global.
Time to Dance!
But of course EDM is dance music. It is not meant just for listening, but for dancing. This may have been one of the reasons why I was against dance music in my youth – I am a terrible dancer. But my renewed interest in EDM also came at a point in my life where I finally don’t care what anyone thinks and I enjoy dancing anyway. So two summers ago my friend and I went to Dreams, a two day EDM music festival at Ontario Place. It was awesome! I heard a lot of incredible music, got exposed to many new genres of EDM, and of course danced up a storm (although to anyone else it just looks like a nerdy guy bobbing his head up and down).
At the festival I saw Above & Beyond perform, and afterwards found that they also have a weekly radio show called Group Therapy. Their show has a different flavour and I really enjoy it now too. The other day I realized I like it sometimes because it is a little more “House-ey”. So it looks like I’ve come full circle. That is another amazing thing about music: it provides so many avenues to explore, to cultivate our tastes, and so the soundtrack of our lives changes and grows as we do.
What’s Next?
I’m really glad I made the decision to expand my musical tastes and explore an unfamiliar style. It has brought me a lot of joy from listening to the music, connecting with a friend, and also from the sense of personal growth. I don’t want to be an old guy who just complains that all new music sucks. So I’ve determined to keep listening to different kinds of music. So where to next? I’m not sure. Maybe country music? Yikes…but bring it on!
