This gives me #OzzyOsbourne Vibes. I remember when I was a teenager, all the white kids would listen to #ACDC #VanHalen and #ozzyosbourne. To them, #MichaelJackson was considered daring. I don’t know, maybe they rocked out to #LionelRichie when nobody was looking, but those were the standards. Us Black kids were into hip-hop and Pop like #5Star. Whatever happened to them? I had a crush on that girl. #Prince was the big shit then. #Madonna…I lost interest in her after she changed her look the first time. This song by #MilkyChance reminds me of Ozzy, I always liked his voice. His wife’s voice is insufferable, but that’s another story. My music buff friend said “alternative” wasn’t a genre when I was a teen in the 80s, but I listened to punk and if #depechemode isn’t alternative I don’t know what is. He’s just dumb, I think.
When I was a teenager, I was often looked at strangely for listening to Iron Maiden, Stryper, Duran Duran, and Grace Jones in my car every morning before school. Some people even thought I was crazy for liking Stevie Nicks. But I didn’t care what they thought. I loved all kinds of music, from classical composers like Vivaldi and Bach to modern artists like Device and Annie Lennox. I also appreciated and loved soul, R&B, and old-timey music, even though it was always “my family and parent’s music” not mine.
I didn’t appreciate rap fully until I heard NWA in college. It was brilliant. RUN-DMC was great, but from their period until NWA came on the scene, it was all on repeat. I lost my mind again when Tupac and Biggie came on the scene, but again, my tastes have just begun to evolve to appreciate the sheer genius of those two emcees. I always respected Sistah Souljah and Queen Latifah. I didn’t like Lil’ Kim initially, but over time I dug her aggressiveness. Jay-Z certified my love for hip-hop. Foxxy Brown, and of course Kanye West (my niece Nicky was like, “My niece Nicky literally stopped me from working, handed me Kanye’s first CD and said: ‘Stop what you’re doing and listen to College Dropout'” and I knew he would be great).
Nowadays, with the world so interconnected, it’s hard to conceive that music was once very segregated. It’s hard to imagine only listening to music because that’s what your tribe says is good. I’m glad we’ve evolved past that. (Yikes, I just wrote Nowadays in a sentence and I meant it)
