Seasons change, people change…or do they?

I doubt anyone who has followed my
columns over the years will remember this, but, I have used that opening line at least twice before. Yes, it’s a song title by a girl group from the 80’s – but it has a meaning in literature and poetry over the years that transcends time. I also happen to like it. Which brings me into my second part in the series of how things evolve over time.

My musical interests are varied and eclectic, by anyone’s standards. I’m not a musical snob at all – I think people that act like their tastes in music are more elevated than others is utterly ridiculous. I subscribe to the theory that my interests are completely different from yours because only I know what I like and the reasons why I like it. Seems more confusing than it actually is.

I believe that there is a song, and beyond that, a genre of songs that can bring back moments in time for us personally – memories if you will – good, bad or indifferent. The evolution of music in general is one that has gone through a dramatic metamorphosis without much concern for its own mortality because as human beings, we gravitate toward some kind of musical influence in our lives.

Without going into the pros and cons of how the music industry has changed over the years, causing a nasty debate and sounding like that high minded musical snob I have already declared myself not to be, let me just say that I have been a staunch advocate for satellite radio in the past and more recently vehicles like Spotify and Pandora. They offer a selection far broader than any record or CD collection I have ever seen, while staying in the midst of any genre you wish to listen to. I like having options like that.

Now while you might not have the ability to call up a specific song on queue, it’s going to end up costing a lot less than buying everything you’d ever want to potentially listen to from iTunes or Amazon and the trade off for not having a specific song available at any given moment is that you still get to have some kind of musical selection that broadens your musical tastes, if just a little bit at a time. Seems more complicated than it actually is.

My point in all this is laying right there out in the open – no matter how much I wax nostalgic for vinyl records, my Sony turntable or an old 8-track player, I can’t imagine not having the choices afforded me by Internet-based radio. That goes beyond genre of music, that goes beyond a favorite song – that plays to everything I could hope for in listening pleasure.