Todd's Blog Post About Music: Part I (The Formative Years)

OK. Enough emotional stuff. Time for me to write about something that evokes other emotions. And that is music.

I am not a music afficianado by any stretch. I don't listen to free-form jazz, and I don't think someone who uses a drill bit on a guitar string on college radio is music. I like all kinds of music. I used to say I hated country music, but as time goes by a VERY select FEW country artists intrigue me. Maybe even just one: Johnny Cash is one country musician I have grown to appreciate. "At Folsom Prison" is an amazing album.

My musical tastes as to what I liked the most at any one given time have changed dramatically over the years. I grew up during the infancy of MTV. Back when that stood for Music Television. Even before that I liked music. When I was very young, one of my favorite things was my 45 of "Disco Duck" by Rick Dees. I wore that single out. I also remember having a single of "Don't Stand So Close To Me" by The Police. See - even when I was young I had diverse taste.

I remember for my 10th birthday getting "1984" by Van Halen for my birthday. One of those moments where you are wondering what the parent was thinking letting their child give that as a present to another 10 year old. I mean, we all know that "Jump" was a MTV classic video, and harmless enough. But the cover of the album, a cupid smoking a cigarette, kind of puts you in awkward spots when dealing with fairly conservative parents. But surprisingly, my parents never really objected to me playing the album, which included every parents favorite anthem for their 10 year old son, "Hot For Teacher."

I don't think my parents were quite as conservative as they let on, at least not when they first started our family, as I learned when I was older that my favorite song when I was too young to remember was "Feel Like Making Love" by Bad Company. Why was this my favorite song? Maybe because my parents owned the Bad Company album "Straight Shooter" on cassette (which at that time was almost like cutting edge technology). I later in life inherited that cassette, and I ended up wearing it out. "Shooting Star" ended up being my favorite track of that album. So I guess my love for rock music really was embedded in me by my parents, which I just find absolutely hilarious this day and age.

The very first cassette I ever owned, which I got at the same time as my very first boombox, was "Seven and the Ragged Tiger" by Duran Duran. And thus began my pop phase of my youth. Granted, I still liked rock, but I absolutely loved Duran Duran and all of the music from the videos of the MTV days. I remember staying up one night to see the premiere of "The Reflex" on MTV. All of Duran Duran's videos seemed so interesting. "Rio". "Hungry Like the Wolf". "Save a Prayer". "New Moon on Monday". "Union of the Snake". None of them ever made sense to the song they were singing, and yet you could not get enough of them. Back then, a music video's debut was an event, and no one delivered quite like Duran Duran.

And then in the mid-80's (and I cannot believe how long ago that was), the event that went on to shape my high school years happened (that will be my next music blog post). When "Licensed to Ill" came out, The Beastie Boys had already released "Fight for Your Right to Party" as a single, and it was blowing up on MTV. I loved that song. I guess I was just about at the age where I was beginning to rebel a little bit before big time rebellion in my teenage years. I was in middle school, and when that album was released, I was sick as a dog. But I was not about to let a little flu keep me from that album, so I had my parents drive me to Turtles Records (for those of you old enough to remember, Turtles absolutely rocked when it came to music. Absolutely my favorite record store chain from back in the day). I bought the cassette and layed in bed and listened to song after song of music I had never really heard before. I had listened to just a little Run D.M.C. before this, but I fell in love with "Paul Revere", "Brass Monkey", "The New Style", etc. And with that one purchase, the seed of love for hip-hop was planted.

And on my next blog post, I will explain how my love for hip-hop went way overboard in high school, and how a purchase of a cassette as a joke, right after I graduated high school, turned me into the dude you are all getting to know today. Until then, have a great day.