Heather’s Obsessed with…Music!

“I’m Obsessed!” is a weekly series where one blogger (or artist, blog reader, crafter, etsian, etc) will share what they are currently obsessed with and why. If you’re interesting in writing a post for the “I’m Obsessed!” series please email me kendra[at]likeabirdblog[dot]com

This week, we have an obsession from a fellow blogger, Heather!

Heather blogs about her year long adventures as an American au pair in Germany at New German Girl

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Okay, so… Kendra is awesome, right? Not only is she hosting a pretty sweet guest blogger series about OBSESSION but she’s letting me be a part of it. And I know myself well enough to say that I am obsessed with a lot of things but this one takes the cake. Music. I am obsessed with music. And this is my tale.

Obsessed, according to princeton.edu, is defined as a verb – to be preoccupied with something – and as an adjective – having or showing excessive or compulsive concern with something and also, my personal favorite, to be influenced or controlled by a powerful force such as a strong emotion.

When it comes to music, I am obsessed. There’s really no other way to say it.

It started when I was 11 years old, after I discovered that all of the girls in my fifth grade class had a favorite band. I didn’t and I felt left out. So, I went home and I picked one out. Hanson. They seemed safe. My mom had been playing them non-stop in the car the season before so at least I already knew the music. Yeah. Hanson. Good choice.

Now, thirteen years later, I’m still a Hanson fan (I even have a tattoo of their music!) but the strong emotion that I feel for music, that obsessed love that has influenced and controlled my life and my heart ever since, has surpassed every expectation that I ever had for myself back then.

Hanson may have created in me a love and appreciation for music but, in all honesty, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I can’t imagine that a modern day, first world person can escape the influence of music in some way or another. It’s prolific. Naturally, I started gravitating toward other bands and different sounds. In junior high I was a pretty typical adolescent girl of the new millennium in that I primarily listened to 98 Degrees, Brandy, Christina Aguilera, NSYNC, and the Backstreet Boys. In high school, I discovered punk pop – Newfound Glory, Something Corporate, Good Charlotte, Yellowcard, The Get Up Kids. But then, during my junior year, I fell in love with The OC and that TV show introduced me to a whole new world of music.

It’s all been downhill from there. Like… downhill on a metal toboggan over ice packed snow that’s been slicked with oil. I am so in love with music. And I like to think that I owe the people who were in charge of compiling the soundtrack for The OC episodes a big hug because they introduced to me to music that opened a lot of doors which initiated some really great aural relationships that have yet to let me down.

I’m not obsessed with music to the point that I drown out the real world and hide inside of my headphones. But music has a huge influence on my life, my personality, and it defines a huge part of who I am. I can’t play music to save my life but Lord knows, I can listen to it. And I can love it and I can share it. I love sharing music. I know, technically that’s illegal but whatever. In fact, I’m kind of known for it. “Oh, you want new music? Call Heather. She’s probably got something you haven’t heard of.” Most of my friends from college will recount all of the mixes that I made them over the years with fond nostalgia. In fact, my best friend let me do the music for her wedding last fall. That was a huge honor and it made me feel like I’m doing something right in loving music the way that I do.

I possess a strong emotion (love, adoration, respect, appreciation, so on and so forth) when it comes to music and, to a certain extent, those emotions influence and control me. Music is the answer for everything. If I’m feeling upset and I need to identify my anger or my hurt, I put on music. There is a song for every emotion, for every feeling, even every non-feeling, and I love that music can do that for me.

Music is nostalgic, it brings me back to places that I’d forgotten about, times in my life that are worth remembering. Every phase of my life is attached to music – be it the collection of indie rock songs that I used to drown out my horrible roommate freshmen year, the self-loathing emo songs of that difficult summer when life was really, really hard to live, or the summer that I worked in the backwoods of eastern Pennsylvania and listened to country music incessantly during every day off. When I hear the songs that defined those moments of my life, it’s like a time machine. I’m right back in that moment and I remember every detail.

There isn’t a man in the world, or a friend in my life, who can understand and identify with me the way that music does. And it goes the same way in reverse. Sometimes the music just makes more sense. It’s an eternal relationship and it is one that I am not afraid to obsess about because it will never tell me to stop talking, to back off or to change. It’s always there. Always. And that is a comfort, in and of itself.
And for your listening pleasure, I’ll leave you with a 26-song playlist that samples all of my favorites – the songs and artists that I listen to obsessively and can’t get enough of. Now please, enjoy and feel free to obsess all you want.

“If you ever get lonely, you just go to the record store and visit all your friends.”
– Penny Lane, Almost Famous