The Accidental Adult: Your taste in music

Colin Sokolowski

accidental adult taste in music The Accidental Adult: Your taste in music

A funny thing happens on our way to accidental adulthood. Eventually, we become more separated from the soundtracks of our youth than we ever anticipated. Our college rock bands broke up the day we landed serious, salaried jobs. We finally can afford the price of amphitheater floor seats, but it’s getting harder and harder to stand throughout entire concerts. Yet deep down we still feel that tug, that calling to reunite with our inner Bill and Ted and unleash that carefree spirit in search of a most excellent adventure.

As we reluctantly age, all of this begs the question: “When is it time to face the music?”

Clearly there’s a fine line between becoming tragically hip and just plain tragic. Here are seven signs you’re headed in the wrong direction.

1. Getting the band back together
So it’s been years since you and your college buddies last played a sloppy power chord together. Thinking about entering a battle of the bands competition that features the freshest young talent around? Think again. Considering a gig at the local community center band shell? Reconsider. There are fewer sights sadder than aging, awful, amateur rock bands that take themselves too seriously while playing to eye-rolling and head-scratching onlookers. If your band was never good in the first place, save your tongue-in-cheek antics for the backyard party, where your audience featuring a few dozen friends will get the joke.

2. Bragging about the glory days
You used to play in a band? That’s great! Now shut the hell up. We’ve all been stuck in a corner with this guy, where we usually give our buddies the “save me from this conversation” signal. It usually goes like this. “Yeah, I was in a band once. Damn near made it big time. Nearly snagged a recording contract. Had a pretty good following for a while there…” Usually unprompted bravado like this is directed toward women in a desperate attempt to get lucky. But I can pretty much guarantee you that in the recorded annals of history, talk like this has never gotten that guy laid. So keep it to yourself, Ace. It wasn’t going to happen anyway.

3. Guitar zeros
Never fall victim to the intoxicating delusion that proficiency at Guitar Hero could translate into actual musical acumen. If you’d like to earn a reputation as a guitar god, here’s a suggestion: Stop playing video games and learn how to play an actual guitar.

4. Rating radio
Don’t be that douchebag who swears he hasn’t listened to the radio in 10 years ’cause it all sucks now. Or the equally insufferable jackass who claims the only good music came off those obscure early albums before the artist “sold out to the man” and started churning out radio-ready commercial hits. Wait a minute… that douchebag sounds a lot like me! I’d better reread my own advice here…

5. Air drumming
Don’t do it. Ever.

6. Spending money on music
$250 on concert tickets? Better save that play for a mega-show reunion tour or that once-in-a-lifetime event. And if you take a beating from friends who think you’ve lost your mind (and your wallet), remind them that supporting the arts is always a generous move. (Very adultlike, too!)

7. “You just have to listen to this!”
Whatever music you choose to purchase, enjoy it solo and don’t force it on others. Few people really care what music you like. And no one wants to hear you explain that you only listen to old Green Day before they lost their punk cred by going all “rock opera” with the American Idiot album. See item #4 above.

But no matter how many of these guidelines you ignore, you musicians and music lovers truly deserve a special place in our hearts -– and a free pass when necessary. Anyone who knows the true backstory to U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” is as sharp as any history scholar in my book. And any singer who can spew by memory the speed lyrics of REM’s “It’s the End of the World as We Know It” deserves a high-five, all the way up (and I’ll feel fine). In a ridiculous world where Van Halen is now considered classic rock, I can’t blame anyone for feeling a bit lost.

So for those about to rock, no matter your age, I really do salute you. A heavy metal horn salute, that is, with a head bang and a “Rock on!” to boot. We’re all going to make a mistake or two in our journey through adulthood. May as well make ‘em loud.

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