I have a complicated relationship with music. This is only the singer-songwriter and band side of the story.
Growing up there were no restrictions. I remember my parent’s music collection included The Beatles, Hootie and The Blowfish, Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, Alan Jackson, The Rankins, and The BeeGees to name a handful. One of my first purchases that I can remember was The Spice Girls’ first album. But I also listened to the likes of Alanis Morissette and Ani DiFranco.
My younger to early teen years were spent listening to a variety of music, which you can confirm from that brief list above – and those are just some CDs I remember my parents owning by the time they had a really cool three-disc CD player in our living room.
I went and saw The Backstreet Boys in concert for their Into The Millennium Tour; I was a last-minute invite for a friend, but we had a blast, and I still have my lanyard. I was definitely very into the boy bands and the girl bands and the mixed bands of the 90s and early 00s. I remember listening to Boys to Men, New Kids on the Block, and Brandy when my older sister was still living at home. That was all mixed in with modern-day church music and old hymns.
A shift happened, though. At one point, once I had evolved into my Evangelical Christian era, I listened almost exclusively to Christian contemporary music – and I was obsessed. Jars of Clay was one of my all-time favourites. But I also enjoyed DC Talk, The Newsboys, Amy Grant, and Joy Williams.
The further down the rabbit hole I got, the more involved in worship band, the more I dug in. Hillsong United (and Hillsong) were very strong contenders, too. By the time I was starting my journey of deconstructing my faith, David Crowder Band was one of the last bands I listened to regularly. I had gone from listening to Y105 (eventually Y101) and KoolFM (with some Chez101, Magic100, The Bear & XFM features thrown in for good measure – shout out to Ottawa’s radio scene in the 90s and early 00s!) to exclusively listening to CHRI.
It was a CCM-or-nothing life for a long while, with the rare exception being whatever music we were playing in concert band. I made it a point to listen to as much good, wholesome music as I could and challenged myself to not swear, since that’s not who I was anymore.
Life has a way of sneaking in new sounds, even when you think your musical world is set. For me, it started with the people I was spending my time with.
My first serious boyfriend was very much into Drum and Bass, Happy Hardcore, and similar genres, and was an aspiring DJ, so I listened to a lot of mixed music. I fell in love. I was still very early in my deconstruction, but I was loving what I was listening to, for the most part.
Another boyfriend was a big fan of trance music. He shared artists he thought I’d enjoy, and I fell in love again. We ended up going to my first big trance show when Mat Zo and Above & Beyond came to town. I was absolutely enchanted by the trio of Jono, Tony, and Paavo and what they were doing. It really helped that we were literally in the second row from the front, often shifting spots with the couple in front of us, so we got to hold onto the railings throughout the night, too.
Oh, the rabbit holes I went down between the two worlds of music I had been introduced to! I honestly couldn’t get enough. Between that and going back to the world of secular music, my heart began healing. In more ways than one, of course – I was free to lose myself in the music and not worry about what I was listening to and whether that was going to fuck with me.
These days, my partner of seven years has some of the most wide-ranging music tastes I’ve ever encountered. There are still musicians who I’m discovering through our shared enjoyment of music. I also still march to the beat of my own drum, though. If you were to check my Spotify, I’m sure the top plays are from P!nk, Taylor Swift, some movie and TV show soundtracks, Disney stuff, and Bhangra. Though currently, I’m listening to John Muirhead at this very moment.
Music means a lot of many things to me. The soundtrack of my life so far has been an interesting mix, and lately I’ll have something on repeat as I can easily lose myself in the music and stim happily and freely.
Even now, the relationship is still complicated – and I think that’s exactly how I like it.