Music is Personal

A little off topic perhaps, but I’m categorising this article as LinkedIn Learning.

I think that music is an incredibly personal thing. We are all individuals with a free will to make life choices, in music terms what artists and genres will be the backdrop to our lives.

For me, John Miles put it beautifully?in his quite brilliant song “Music” from 1976:

“Music was my first life and it will be my last, Music of the future and music of the past, To live without my music, would be impossible to do, In this world of trouble, my music brings me through”.

The first single I ever bought was Magic by Pilot, followed quickly by Abba’s Arrival album. It was 1980, I next bought Boy by U2. This was the start of me being a lifelong fan of both U2 and Simple Minds, both of whom I have seen live on several occasions. Heady days indeed.

In those days, my music diet consisted mainly of Rock and Heavy Metal. Favourite bands included Rush, AC/DC, Saxon, Kansas, Mot?rhead, REO Speedwagon, Foreigner, Bon Jovi, Creed, Guns n Roses, Trevor Rabin, UFO, etc. You get the gist. I developed (not exactly by intent) a love of mostly Scottish bands - Texas, Deacon Blue, Gun, Big Country, Aztec Camera, Blue Nile, Hue n Cry, INXS, The Trashcan Sinatras, The Big Dish, The Bluetones, The Cranberries, The Waterboys, The Verve, Goodbye Mr Mackenzie, Kasabian, Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty.

In more recent times, my “taste” has broadened. Artists include The Stereophonics, Snow Patrol, The Script, The Silencers, Kings of Leon, The Cult, Imagine Dragons, OneRepublic, Oasis, Hard Fi, Gorillaz, Linkin Park, Blossoms, James Bay, Paolo Nutini, Lewis Capaldi, Rag n Bone Man, Sam Fender, Callum Beattie, Gerry Cinnamon, Glasvegas.

Of course, like pretty much everyone else there are certain musical genres that I have no interest in - another clear marker of individualism. I do not follow: Soul, Jazz, Punk, Reggae, Hip hop. And in general I don’t look to earlier than the 1970s - Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, etc. However, The Beatles wrote some of the all time best songs: Love Me Do, Ticket to Ride, Hey Jude, Let it Be, Yesterday…the list goes on and on.

So, when am I going with this post (I hear you ask) ? Some of you may recall a music experiment that I carried out throughout December 2023. I posted playlists of my favourite songs with a link to the U-Tube video. Frankly, it got out of hand. Entirely my fault. Starting with one plot list per day with just a couple of songs, quite quickly I was posting two playlists each day, each with fifteen songs.

My wife Shona said that it was simply overwhelming for those following the thread. And I think my expectation that people would watch the videos referenced in the posts was just unrealistic. So, what to do to share my favourite music ? As an unexpected by-product of the experiment, I created four Spotify playlists as follows:

Top 50 Songs:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7MDj5H5U8Bq19tNToxWE5c?si=Q_oCo2r8Q9-LLroLv2_Syg&pi=e-aOeLlorORq60

Top 50 Contenders:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1nKa1JpsGXEXH25E6pSl4S?si=35IIP6uvTG6lrk5C1nR5pg&pi=e-80x3U94sRd-5

?Rock / Metal / Indie (425 songs):

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2niYIiT344A6IAUAzgcjlh?si=jniVj_fCSE28zAB52sfkFQ&pi=e-gh6g27r2S3e-

Cast Iron Songs & Torch Ballads (284 songs):

?https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2XI8B9LONiNJ9FkK6EcUFs?si=wmMJ-lf_RDGCm7FrpRDqww&pi=e-7gUbfAi6QimA

If you don’t currently have Spotify, you can get a restricted feature version of the Spotify app for free. No subscription required, but with adverts. Perhaps you could consider giving of the Top 50 playlists (above) a whirl. And maybe let me know what you think.