Music To My Ears

Interesting conversation, this.

As I was talking to my friend, the conversation eventually swung around to music as it so often does when we talk to each other. He is a lover of Iron Maiden and heavy metal in general, and this he said was traced back to his childhood where he listened to his father's music collection.

Quick history lesson here; I was born Asian, funnily enough, and the cultural and social implications of such reverberate to present day. I imagine it's common for children to inherit certain tastes and attachments from their parents, so you can guess what most of my childhood was. I was raised to a strong (not strict, strong. I mean, I was allowed to have white friends and everything.) Vietnamese upbringing. So there was no Beatles, no Queen, no Rolling Stones. I wasn't restricted to anything, but more encouraged to a Vietnamese atmosphere.

An example of the kind of thing I was exposed to at a young age.

Surreal, right?

Things got kind of crazy once I got into Handsworth Grammar, where the only other remotely Oriental person was a white guy called Luke who squinted every time he forgot his glasses. So really, I had no choice but see what can happen away from an Oriental atmosphere.

This basically opened up a whole new world to me. Every single genre was thrust in my direction, which got very overwhelming very quickly. Most of my early teens I remember music wise was a horrid mix of hip-hop and dirty metal (I say, metal. I was a massive Linkin Park nerd back then, so nu-metal then. Unfortunately, I can't listen to 'Numb' nowadays without shuddering and sweating like Michael Barrymore teaching a swimming safety session.)

It stayed like this for a few years, with my relatives consistently bemused and disgruntled at the same time regarding my music choices ("It sounds like people are in hospital having their legs amputated.") until I came across this little beauty.

Almost anyone who knows Bloc Party will agree that Silent Alarm was one of the best albums around the time, and arguably the best of Bloc Party so far (I stand by my opinion that A Weekend In The City is equal to it, if not better. A controversial opinion, to say the least.) and I credit this album as that one that moulded me into the person I am today. No parent's influences whatsoever, and I like to think that one day my children will look up to my days as a young, hip, cool guy who was down with it and will take inspiration from it.

And just for shits and gigs. Another song. Purely because I remember how to embed stuff onto posts now. Fuuuccckkk yeahhhh.