A few words about music...
I was obsessed with the Beatles by the age of three. But growing up on the outskirts of Detroit, a world of music beckoned: gospel, soul, Motown, hip-hop, blues, R&B. I baked in the summer heat as Macedonian and Polish and Greek bands played in Hart Plaza at Detroit's famed ethnic festivals. The Montreaux-Detroit Jazz Festival. And then in high school, I took a serious detour into punk rock.
In college, I somehow convinced my advisors to let me listen to Television, Richard Hell and Patti Smith and get credit for it. (To be fair, I threw in some French symbolists and Russian futurists, wrote 85 pages about them all, and got high honors for it.) I was hooked.
After college, I finagled a job at Rhapsody (then Listen.com) writing about music, and a few other outlets let me write for them too. I've written about pop, punk, soul, bluegrass, rock, R&B, Americana, Latin music, and an astonishing array of international music. I feel privileged to have spent a significant portion of my career decoding the lyrics, instrumentation, rhythms and decisions (conscious and unconscious) made by musicians. I'm humbled by how much I've learned at their feet. Criticism is easy; making music is not.
But the more you learn about music, the more you realize how much you don't know. It's an endless study, and one I hope I'll continue for the rest of my life.
A parting thought: Pay attention to music. Our human history is embedded in our songs. And perhaps our present and future, too.
In college, I somehow convinced my advisors to let me listen to Television, Richard Hell and Patti Smith and get credit for it. (To be fair, I threw in some French symbolists and Russian futurists, wrote 85 pages about them all, and got high honors for it.) I was hooked.
After college, I finagled a job at Rhapsody (then Listen.com) writing about music, and a few other outlets let me write for them too. I've written about pop, punk, soul, bluegrass, rock, R&B, Americana, Latin music, and an astonishing array of international music. I feel privileged to have spent a significant portion of my career decoding the lyrics, instrumentation, rhythms and decisions (conscious and unconscious) made by musicians. I'm humbled by how much I've learned at their feet. Criticism is easy; making music is not.
But the more you learn about music, the more you realize how much you don't know. It's an endless study, and one I hope I'll continue for the rest of my life.
A parting thought: Pay attention to music. Our human history is embedded in our songs. And perhaps our present and future, too.