On Musical Preferences and Differences

Or: Was I adopted?

How do people brought up basically the same way have such disparate views on music? This is a question I puzzled over the other day while showering for work. I was listening to one of my playlists on shuffle and an Iron Maiden song came on, and I realized I’m probably the only person in my family capable of enjoying “The Trooper.” 

Like any art form, music speaks to everyone differently. But it strikes me as odd how differently I grew up consuming the medium than my three siblings. My brother and my youngest sister enjoy country music — a genre I haven’t found very compelling, to be honest. There’s the odd song here or there that I like, but I’ve never been a ‘country guy.’ 

The older of my two younger sisters (I’m the oldest of four) ended up building an incredibly sizable CD collection as an adult even though my memory of her music consumption growing up essentially begins and ends with a couple of Shaun Cassidy records and maybe the Bee Gees’ Spirits Having Flown (I say “maybe” because that memory is a bit hazy). I obviously missed her growing interest in music of various styles but it was extremely nice to enjoy a Billy Joel concert with her a few years back in Albany, New York, where I lived at the time. I say “a few years back” as an off-hand remark, even though — now that I think about it — that was 20 years ago. It was my first time seeing Billy, who was great that night, and spending that evening with Vicki was one of the highlights of my one year in upstate New York.

Despite her expanded love of music, it is doubtful that she owns Iron Maiden’s Piece of Mind album, or probably any Iron Maiden album. So, how did the four of us develop such different tastes despite growing up under the same roof?

I’ve done no research on the topic but I suspect some of what speaks to us about the music we like is how we self-identify and who our friends were growing up. I was never too interested in “country” activities, although I spent my junior high and high school years in a rural area of Ohio. I loved our neighborhood and the surrounding countryside off a two-lane state road near Dawes Arboretum, between the city of Newark and the village of Jacksontown, but closer to Heath than either. It was kind of in the middle of nowhere but it wasn’t too far from town. The place I live now is similarly situated.

Although I went fishing as a kid, even a few times by myself in high school, I was no outdoorsman. For me, going outside usually meant playing basketball, football, baseball, or Wiffleball with friends. In high school I got a dirt bike for Christmas one year and rode it around the neighborhood or around our yard (even though I wasn’t supposed to do either of those things). The point is that I wasn’t a shut-in or an inside guy. I just never was into hunting, was barely into fishing, and never identified with the ‘country’ lifestyle, despite going to school with people who lived on actual farms, had accents as thick as any southerner, and never missed deer season. My brother did gravitate toward hunting, trapping, and fishing. It follows interests of my dad which I never really shared. When he took me fishing as a kid I was more excited to be out on the boat than landing crappie and catfish.

I loved sports and would play outside anytime the other kids in the neighborhood were around. Whether we were going down the street to play basketball in our friend Jeff’s driveway, Wiffleball in my back yard, football in the neighbors’ side yard, or baseball in a nearby field across the street from the Crawfords’ house, I was down. It didn’t matter to me if it was raining, snowing, or as hot as those Ohio summer days could get, I wanted to play. 

However, I was also quite introspective, and I’d entertain myself by devouring science fiction / fantasy or Stephen King novels or music magazines like Circus and Hit Parader in my bedroom. Or I’d listen to records. When I got old enough to like it really loud, I put on headphones when I had to (I’d know when I had to use them because Mom would yell at me to turn it down). Occasionally I’d read with records playing, but usually listening to music was not a background activity for me. I’d listen actively while looking at the album cover or skimming the lyrics in the liner notes. I’d try to imagine what the song writer was thinking when he wrote it and attempt to discern how the various songs on the album fit together and tied in with the picture on the sleeve. 

I was hooked on music pretty early. I’ve documented elsewhere my beginnings with music and how it’s always been part of my life. But I’m not sure how I dove so deeply into music. My parents had a record collection somewhere between modest and decent and they’d had 8-track tapes as well, but at least from the time I was old enough to track such behavior, I don’t think either of them spent much leisure time listening to music, or at least it didn’t seem that way. I’m sure my mom was into music at some point when she was younger. We had a Lowrey Genie organ in our living room she played when we were pretty young and as we got older it sat unused more often than not.

We had a console stereo in our living room growing up but I don’t remember it being used all that much. Sometimes Mom would play the radio or her Barry Manilow albums while doing housework and there was a Beach Boys Christmas album I can clearly remember receiving play during the holiday season. The albums I most associate with my dad are a Statler Brothers hits album, some Jan and Dean stuff, and Sunday and Me by Jay and the Americans. I have a vague recollection of browsing through those albums in the stereo’s built-in record bin and seeing some Bobby Vinton, Roy Orbison, Elvis, and a couple of Monkees albums (which I swiped to play in my room and still haven’t returned). 

The stereo sat unused much of the time, just as the organ did. I realize now as a parent that listening to music is one of the things for which you never seem to have enough time. It's possible my parents listened to music incessantly while I was a baby or before I came along. I try to make as much time for listening to music as I can but now I usually have to have it on while doing something else and I can’t imagine a mother of four finding any time to do it. As a truck driver, at least my dad could listen to his cassette collection while hauling freight all over the country. He listened to a lot of country and oldies (from the fifties and sixties) and surprisingly had an affinity for Abba, which delighted me to no end as a fellow fan.

My first favorite band was Kiss because I grew up in the Midwest in the 1970s and that was the law back then. I had seen them for the first time on a Paul Lynde Halloween television special. My friend Scott Mirra had their Alive! album and I became a fan. Rock music of that time was so different than anything my folks listened to but that’s not what I liked about it. There was something about the energy. I loved the sound of the electric guitar and the way it was used — both rhythm and lead. I liked the driving beat of the drums. I was a rock guy. As I got older, my friends all seemed to like rock and pop music. We grew up as Mtv was exploding in popularity and got exposed to all kinds of pop, new wave, heavy metal, and anything else the network would play when it would play virtually anything just to fill 24 hours a day of programming. Bands from all over the world were suddenly available to us 24/7, whether the radio was playing their songs or not.

In high school I had friends who listened to the Doors and Led Zeppelin and I really wanted no part of that at the time, although I grew quite a deep appreciation for both bands later in life. Napster was how I eventually became a Zep fan. I downloaded all their songs, loved them, and went out and bought them all on CD. In my high school days, however, I wanted to listen to the bands of that time. 

I loved Def Leppard when they started hitting Mtv with “Photograph” and “Rock of Ages.” I was into bands like Genesis, Duran Duran, Men at Work, Foreigner, the Alan Parsons Project, and what I call the holy trinity of Triumph albums: Allied Forces, Never Surrender, and Thunder Seven. And I loved 80s metal. The Scorpions were huge at the time and I loved Judas Priest, Iron Maiden, Motley Crue, and bands like Dokken, Dio, Quiet Riot, Krokus, Ratt, Fastway, Twisted Sister, Black ‘N Blue, and countless others.

I don’t know how two of my siblings became country people along the way but probably they fell in with friends who were and that’s what they were exposed to while still pretty young — the way I fell in with Kiss records when I was in elementary school. The two youngest I feel I can comfortably call “country folk” and they won’t take offense at the term. They might even take it as a compliment, and it pretty much is. 

The oldest of the other three I consider rural, perhaps, but not ‘country’ per se. Vicki seems to like a little bit of everything and I’m pretty much that way myself although, as I mentioned earlier, I find little likable about country (I don’t think .38 Special counts) and I absolutely loathe rap, hip hop, and most of the music that borrows heavily from either one. Vicki and I both went to four-year universities away from home, which may play into the expansion of our musical palates. It’s just a theory. As I said, I’ve done no actual research on this although I’m sure someone has and maybe someday I’ll look into it.

While not a country person myself, I do still enjoy being outside when the weather is in the sweet spot — somewhere between boiling lava and the frozen moons of Neptune. I live in Florida, so there are far too many days like the former and too few of the latter. I do like the outdoors though. I took up hiking a few years ago and got to know the flora and fauna of the area through walking through some of the wildlife preserves, spring areas, and forests of Central Florida. It just doesn’t make me ‘country’ even though I can appreciate country-tinged rock songs like those from Roger Clyne & the Peacemakers (for example).

I honestly admire my brother for being the way he is. He works hard, can use his hands to fix and build things, and he’s got a good knowledge of the kinds of skills that would come in useful if society ever broke down. These are things that never interested me although I do think they’re important. My sisters each inherited my mom’s admirable devotion to their children and willingness to do anything and everything for them. They’re all fantastic people and I would like to (and should) spend more time with all of them than I have. As I said, I’m introspective. Time gets away from me very quickly. 

If I get the chance to spend that time with them, I could probably find out exactly how their journey through music happened and then maybe I’d have my answers.