Tonight my roommate and I cooked up some Trader Joe’s pumpkin gnocchi topped with Trader Joe’s pumpkin pasta sauce and roasted Trader Joe’s squash. I fear it does not get more college than that. Add on top of that our constant Gilmore Girls binging and pumpkin spice Starbucks drinks this morning. What a time we have had, and it’s only the second day of fall.
Now, back to what we’re here for: the music. Since returning to school, I have been on a crazy rock music kick, consisting of classic, alternative, soft, and pretty much any other type of classification possible. I’d say this whole ordeal started out as I looked at past playlists, like Fall in Da Hill, from freshman year. Overwhelmed by a new town with all new faces that year, I found my sanity by discovering new music. That’s when I first got into Billy Idol, Van Morrison, the Cure, and more of Hall & Oates.
Rock and Such
But like other aspects of my life, I have continued to mature past those times. So what am I listening to today? Lots and lots of tunes from the ‘60s and ‘70s. At this exact moment, I have some nice “Still the Same” by Bob Seger going. I could see myself exploring more of his music. So far I have taken a liking to that song and “Night Moves.”
Bob Seger and more are featured on my classic and somewhat soft playlist, which was originally made for chill, end-of-summer-turning-into-fall evenings on our outside porch. It is highlighted by Phil Collins, Atlanta Rhythm Section, Steely Dan, Dire Straits, and Fleetwood Mac. I like when Spotify starts catching onto my random, niche obsessions and gives me relevant suggestions on my Daylists. I think that’s how I have landed on so much of the music I have in this playlist.
Turning it up a notch, I have definitely been venturing into somewhat harder rock as well. I expect to see Pink Floyd on this year’s Spotify wrapped thanks to this next playlist alone: Rock N’ Roll. Everything from Floyd to Led Zeppelin and Foreigner to Tom Petty has been slowly accumulating on this playlist. A highly-anticipated and amazing Foreigner and Styx concert definitely triggered the creation of it. If you have stuck around with my blog for a while, you’d know that one of my first articles was written about Foreigner 4. Lou Gramm’s gritty voice and the ethereal synthesizers made “Waiting for a Girl Like You” my fourth-most listened to song on Spotify in 2020. While I had honestly only listened to a few of Styx’s biggest hits before the concert, I was successfully put on to more by their energy and sound live. “Renegade” may be one of the greatest holistic pieces of music out there. Good stuff Styx.
So that’s how I landed in the twentieth century and have barely made it back.
Trap Rap
Interestingly enough, when I do decide to listen to something from the past ten years, all I can do is land on Gunna Wunna. I’ll link below my trap rap playlist (Gunna Pre Wunna) since I have definitely been building it up. Thank you, Joe Burrow, for the playlist name. Inspired by the varsity football pregame playlist and my frequents Daylists like “tough wrestling monday evening,” this playlist consists of some of the grimiest music I have. Shoutout “Vette Motors,” by Youngboy.
Boy & Bear: Their Own Section
Lastly, I cannot finish this month’s music report without mentioning probably the most amazing part of it all… my roommate and I got to see one of our favorite bands at a long-awaited concert: Boy & Bear. I had never been to a concert venue so small and intimate. There had to have been under 150 people in the crowd, and we sat in the third row. Invaluable. That’s kind of the best word to describe the whole experience. We watched the band sing some of our freshman year anthems like “Southern Sun” and “Old Town Blues” from 20-feet away. I bought a signed copy of their vinyl and had each band member re-sign it right in front of my face. Their warm and welcoming personalities make me fall in love with their songs even more after. I just rewatch our videos and remember how these chillers messed around and made some of the most heavenly music known to man. God, I would’ve traveled to Australia for them. They saved me a couple thousand dollars by deciding to come to the States to play for some random girls like us.
To sum it all up, while I have been a classic girl engaging in fall semester activities, this September’s listening has been dedicated embodying being both a suburban dad and a pubescent teenage boy. Moving forward, we must only refer to this semester as the “Year of the Hive.” The Hive, referring to my home, and the rest of the slogan referring to Al Stewart’s rock classic, “The Year of the Cat.”
Iz FM 
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