Classification of Music

Classification of Music

People judge one another on a variety of aspects, whether it is the clothes they wear or the people they socialize with. I believe that there are many different things that affect all these aspects, things that create our individual personality. The most major influence on an individual's personality is the music he or she listens to. Music affects the individual's behavior, actions, the way he or she thinks, wears and even the way the individual will speak. These are the very things that we are judged upon as humans. By the classification and break down of the music we listen too is how we can find ourselves.

For me, music is soothing, and not something to be butchered with loud yelling or talk of bitches and whores. I can hardly relate to the music selection of my own generation, so I listen to my parents generation of music-early classic rock. When I pick an album to listen to, I do so based on the power of their lyrics, soothing voices, and relaxed musical instruments. I do however pick an album based on my mood or attitude towards that particular day. If I need to relax I pick an artist who actually speaks to me through their lyrics. To me those bands are the older ones of the late sixties and early seventies. Bands just after the time of the pointless rock era that artists like Chuck Berry and even 'The King' himself would present. Their hits including mindless songs like 'You Ain't Nothing but a Hound Dog' and 'Rollover Beethoven.' And bands just early enough to be before the techno and rap age of music, with artists who sing to follow a beat rather than consider lyrics, along with the teen idol's who have lyrics written before them with songs like 'Oops! I did it Again' by Britney Spears. Songs that say exactly what they mean to say. I do not mean to vandalize them as artists or slander their career or success, but their music does not speak to me.

When I like to be calm or need to be calm, I listen to an album that will touch me on some level, artists with powerful lyrics like: Bob Dylan, Elton John, Simon and Garfunkel, Neil Young, and America do just that. These artists are true poets, they speak of life, truth, happiness, and sometimes they say this through metaphors or leave their conclusions obvious. Tom Petty's 'Free Fallin' or 'Learning to Fly,' puts everything out on the table to look at, no real thinking or metaphorical interpretation involved and still it speaks powerfully. One of the most relaxing songs for me is Elton John's 'Tiny Dancer.' The piano and his voice are all so very soothing and comforting. I listen to Simon and Garfunkel for their poetry, rather than their ability to play guitar. All of their songs stand out to me, songs like 'Sound of Silence' and 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' are poetic, and they carry a very somber tone. These artists create a very relaxed environment for me, and since I do not like to be stressed or high maintenance in any way, I love these songs and artists. Songs with powerful lyrics that I can actually think about, like Bob Dylan's 'Shelter from the Storm' and 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' succeed in relaxing me. These songs are metaphors that put me in a trance shielding me from the outside world.

Then of course there is that psychedelic music that puts me in an odd groove. Music one would have to listen too while under the influence of something to heighten his or her train of thought. Artists like The Doors, Neil Young, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Tom Petty, and America, make drugs almost a necessity to understand their lyrics. Whether their songs contain hidden metaphors of drug usages like Tom Petty's 'Mary Jane's Last Dance' and America's 'Sandman,' or the songs that require ones senses to better be aroused by some sort of narcotic; for example, any song by Pink Floyd. Then there are those songs that really speak of non-sense, written and performed by drunken buffoons like The Doors and David Bowie, all songs I find very amusing. The very music that I can throw my head around to in random directions