i like music. so do you.

Like most self-respecting 20 somethings with an affinity towards music, I listen to whatever makes me happy. I do this with little or no concern for what's currently topping the popular charts (do we even still have "charts"?) I hope I'm not unique in this fact. If music plays an important role in your life I hope you have reached a point where you no longer like a song because Carson Daly tells you that you should. Instead, a music connoisseur (if that's you) should actively and/or regularly sift through new artists, periodically stumbling across the ones that change lives. This allows one determine for oneself what is truly "good music" (note; if your favorite music really is the top song on TRL, don't apologize. I'm no musical elitist. To each his own. Listen to what makes you happy.)

I totally know that my "good music" isn't necessarily your "good music." You may hate my favorite music and I yours. This does not negate either of our opinions. Music is created to be interpreted and enjoyed. Just because I listen to artists that sing about puddles in Icelandic and you listen to music from the soundtrack from the Gray's Anatomy, it doesn't mean that i love my music more than you love yours, or that mine is better than yours. We just enjoy different music. No apologies need to be made. Ever.

That being said, I can think of multiple times in my life that I've felt it necessary to apologize for my tastes in music. Once such instance occured while I was working in the Post Office at Indiana Wesleyan. I was listening to Clap Your Hands Say Yeah when my boss Ellen walked in. Ellen is a middle aged black woman that makes no secrets about her opinions on things she believes don't make sense (anything Goth, people who don't know how much stamps are, etc),

Walking into the room Ellen stopped, wrinkled her face and looked around the room similarly to how one might if they believed their dog had just gone to the bathroom behind the couch.

"Is your radio broken?" Ellen said.
"My Ipod? No, its fine." I replied.
"Whooo...is that a real song? Really real? He needs to take some voice lessons." She said.
Standing there in silence as CYHSY belted on about the skin of their yellow country teeth, I reached for my Ipod and quietly clicked the wheel to "Yellow" by Coldplay as she walked back to her office.