There are three things I never have discussed in a column. Sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll. Now that I've got you excited, I'll talk about rock 'n' roll.
By rock 'n' roll, I mean music, because if I only meant r-n-r then I'd say a lot about Elvis and not much else. This shows how much I know about music.
I have flaws. I don't like spicy food, I can't parallel park, I growl when asked to roll my Rs. These can be overlooked. At Thai restaurants I order the mild platter; on crowded streets I drive 10 blocks to find a parking lot; in high school I took French instead of Spanish. There's one flaw, though, that haunts me almost daily. People notice it. They raise their eyebrows. They act like it's OK. But it's not: I know nothing about music.
I realized that I was deficient in this area of the arts during eighth grade. I had just grown my hair out and purchased jeans with holes in them; I was entirely focused on the middle school culture of "being hot." I missed out on what most everyone else was getting into: mixtapes. CDs with more than one artist on them? Clinging to my beloved Usher 8701 CD, circa fifth grade, I wondered what was going on.
While I was busy flat-ironing my hair and prepping for my PSATs, my peers were seeking out new artists and new songs. They were listening to radio stations and buying music and burning discs and sharing their discoveries with others. I always had been good at everything I'd tried because, hey, I was only 13 and I hadn't tried that much. When I realized that I, unlike everyone else, had no interest in seeking out new music, I became defensive and decided that the one radio station I listened to would keep me and Usher company for as long as we needed.
I became defensive because I was jealous. I quickly understood that knowing "cool" music made one cool, and my late middle school days and early high school years wanted nothing more than an inundation of coolness. So why didn't I join the ranks of my LimeWire loving contingency? Because I couldn't care enough. All of my caring had been sucked up by my youthful vanity, my attempts at high school sports, my obsession with high school grades. Music seemed fun, and I was too busy being cool to have any time for that.
I didn't seek out music; music found me. It was bound to happen that, one day, some genre of tunes would spark my interest. I was too busy to like "all kinds of music," as my tight jean, Vans wearing guy friends did. Only one kind of music could break my concentration, could make me stop looking in the mirror, hitting a hockey ball, studying for a test. In 10th grade I fell in love with rap music, and I've never looked back.
When my hipster friends heard the bass blasting out of my earphones, they asked me what I was listening to. Certainly it wasn't Dashboard Confessional, my go-to band since seventh grade. I would smile and enunciate: well, it's rap music. I hope you can picture me saying that, earnest and fresh-faced and completely laughable. My friends would hesitate then continue: oh, like Tupac and Biggie? They prayed that the "rap" I mentioned was not preceded by "mainstream" or god forbid "contemporary." Of course, they were saddened when I responded to their question with a: Who's that?
Since 10th grade I've listened to what I like to call "radio rap." It doesn't make me cool, but it makes me happy. In high school it made driving to school at 7 a.m. bearable. In college it makes running on the treadmill feel a little less painful.
I went to my first concert in 11th grade. I was so behind on "cool" that I didn't think I'd ever catch up. The concert was The Eagles, and it was fun. I sang the songs, and I deemed it "a nice time." My second concert was a few months later, and it was Snoop Dogg. It was more than fun, more than just a nice time. That hot and sweaty and smoke-filled concert in Myrtle Beach made it into my list of top five days ever. I realized that Snoop hadn't been on the radio for a while, and for the first time in my musically inclined history, I felt kind of cool.
I'm still jealous of my friends who spew out names of obscure bands and "really great" songs. I still think I'll go through another one of my dating-guys-in-bands phases, the ones where "dating" is used loosely and I live vicariously through said guys in bands. I know next to nothing about music. But I do know what I like. Keep your mixtapes. I've got a playlist on my iPod called "really awesome rap music" and for now, that's all I need.
Connelly's column runs weekly Thursdays. She can be reached at c.hardaway@cavalierdaily.com.
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