The Junction Journal

My Music Heart

As most people who know me know… Music is kinda my thing. And when I say music is kinda my thing, what I really mean is that music is like literally my whole entire existence. I have a song for everything—Every person. Every situation. Every feeling.

I think I’ll use my last Currently Listening post as a window into my Music Heart!

Here’s a little background about my favorite genres and artists!

Dark Boy Tunes 15%

NEED I SAY MORE? … Linkin’ Park. Evanesence. Silverstein. Metalica. Slipknot. Black Veiled Brides. My Chemical Romance

I had my dark boy/ emo/ punk/ alternative phase… SUE ME!!! I think some time between my sophomore and junior days of high school, I decided to hate the world, and everything related to goodness. Nough said… Enjoy life. Don’t be like me!!! (No lie, though, I still gets down with these artists… They low key poppin’. :D)

Lite Music 25%

LET ME TELL YOU… Whitney Houston. Tina Turner. Celine Dion. Billy Joel. Donna Summer. Phil Collins.

Growing up, there were two radios in my house that were ALWAYS on. One in the kitchen. One in my parents’ bedroom. These radios were ALWAYS on 106.7 Lite FM. Some of my earliest memories are listening to Billy Joel’s The Longest Time and Piano Man. DO NOT start playing Whitney’s Saving All my Love for You or All at Once around me… Your ears will bleed. You will cry. Too many bodily fluids you gon want back when you get old… 😦

Old School Slow Reggae 30%

WHOO, BOY… Buju Banton. Beres Hammond. Sanchez. Tracy Chapman. Luciano. Bob Marley.

So aside from those two radios permanently set to 106.7 Lite FM, we had a mega sound system in the living room. This system was reserved for weekends and holidays. On the weekends, it mostly played some good old school reggae and some really random church songs (see below). Oh yeah… Then there’s my mother’s car stereo. Every single day when my mother drove my brother and I to the babysitter, Luciano’s It’s a Jungle Out There was playing… Good times. One of my favorite things about this old school reggae is that it’s just so simultaneously ubiquitous and archaic. This music is played EVERYWHERE Caribbean people exist. So many of the songs use the same, or very similar beats. These songs also famously come on pirated, unmarked CD’s with no album or artist information available. These factors often result in second-generation Caribbean immigrants knowing both all on and none of these songs or artists… But let one of these songs come on at a part!!! We all go CRAZY.

Miscellaneous Tunes 10%

RANDOMONIUM… Phil Harris. Jim Reeves. Renfue. Every and Anyone else I may be missing… !

So… While my mother’s car was the home of old school reggae tunes, my father’s car was the place of old school… old tunes(?) My father would just play these random songs that he grew up with. Some of them were kinda weird, but they were also awesome!!! I am randomly very well acquainted with the old time-y Christian stylings of Jim Reeves(?) ALSO, his one song, Ohil Harris’s The Thing, has left me puzzled to this very day……. Anyway, I would also like this miscellaneous portion of my music heart to represent all the lovely music I’ve accidentally downloaded (mostly during my Limewire/ Bearshare/ Ares days [I DO NOT admit to EVER downloading ANY illegal materials using illegal file sharing software]). I really love the band Renfue whose music I accidentally downloaded using Ares. The file claimed to be a song from Paramore’s Brand New Eyes Album… >_>

K- Hip Hop (and other Korean music genres) 99.999%

(Let’s be real, though… You guys didn’t actually really for real for real expect these percentages to add up properly, did you..? ;))

YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!! Let’s be real, guys! This entire blogpost has been leading up to this moment! In fact, everything prior to this point very point in this blogpost has been a front—a rouse meant to disguise my Korean hip hop post—to give the appearance of me having a musical identity outside of Korean hip hop!!! Mwahahahahahaha… !!!

JAY PARK. BTS. BIG BANG. 2NE1. HYOLYN. CHEETAH. RAP MONSTER. AILEE. TAEYANG. CRUSH. T.O.P. CL. G-DRAGON. 4MINUTE. EXID. SAN E. MADCLOWN. SEUNGRI. DAESUNG. AGUST D. DEAN. BLACKPINK. MONSTA X.

About two years ago, MTV was advertising a Taeyang concert that would take place in L.A. They kept playing his song Ringa Linga in a really cool looking commercial… That’s literally how it happened. I found Ringa Linga and downloaded it. I downloaded all of Taeyang’s songs. Then I moved on to his band, Big Bang. Then I moved on to all the other Big Bang members’ solo songs… Then I just moved on and on and on.

I hope that I do not come of as odd or voyeuristic in my love of Korean music. There are just so many sociological- political- cultural nuances that make Korean music fascinating and awesome. If you need a little more context, please see my Currently Listening post, Apology for K- Hip Hop!!!

For now, I will semi-bombard you with my current K- Hip Hop/ Pop faves!!!!!!!