It’s funny to look back on the music I listened to as a teenager and the music I listen to now.
I am not sure if it’s a generational thing or if it was just the area in which I grew up in, but from the time I entered sixth grade and all throughout high school I felt like you were judged based off of what music you listened to. At least, that’s what my peers and I did.
It all started in middle school. Since I had two older brothers, I was exposed to whatever they listened to, and it just so happened to be old school punk. I remember being so offended when a schoolmate told me that the music I listed to was “soft” because it wasn’t as heavy or as hard hitting as his favorite band, System of a Down. My group of friends and I listened strictly to punk rock, and we rivaled ourselves with the “jocks” of the school, and hated anything they listened to, which was predominantly hip-hop and scream-o.
Then in high school I made a new group of friends, and most of us only listened to hardcore. For our raging 16-year-old spirits, anything you couldn’t mosh to simply wasn’t worth listening to. All of a sudden I was listening to what I would have originally considered scream-o, totally ignoring the tribal attitudes I held in middle school.
But hardcore and metal wasn’t for everyone. At least that’s what my friends and I thought. You had to prove your worth by religiously going to local hardcore shows and show everyone there how hard you could mosh in the pit. If you could do that, then maybe the tribe would accept you.
While this was a phase in my life, I believe that I quickly grew out of it because I was trained in music from a young age, so once I stopped learning how to play metal and punk songs I started to discover jazz, classical, hip-hop and indie; which made me see the beauty in all that was music. It also made me feel like a doofus for judging anyone who listened to music that was different than the music I listened to with my friends. Once I graduated high school, I stopped religiously going to shows, but every once in a while when I did I would see the new crop of kids attending shows with the same look of tribal toughness that my friends and I had.
This begs me to ask the question: What does it say about perceptions of teenage masculinity when we equate the music we choose to listen to and our manhood? Personally, I believe it stems from a bigger issue of toxic masculinity that needs to be addressed earlier on in a child’s developing years. We have a responsibility to teach children – specifically teenage boys – to appreciate and value the diversity in music, and that no one is lesser for having specific tastes.
Now, I can’t stand most of the hardcore music I listened to in high school. I have a much more eclectic taste in music, and I continue to listen to the type of music that my brothers exposed me to and more traditional forms of metal and rock. To me, that music is timeless.
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Photo Credits: Edward Cisneros
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