I live with a deep, dark musical secret. Okay … it’s not so dark.

When I’m asked about my “guilty pleasures” where music is concerned, I must confess —

I don’t have one.

When I “participated” in a (fake) “My Prog” magazine interview recently, this was one of the questions asked. The inference was that somewhere in everyone’s music collection there is a record or two one would be ashamed to tell anyone about. I’m not that person.

Look … I love music. If it’s on my shelves, it’s there for a reason. I harbor no “guilt” about it. But I get where that thought process comes from, and I blame radio consultants. They created that dreaded concept known as “demographics,” which are designed to tell people of different ages and backgrounds what kind of music they should be enjoying. The truly sad part is, more than a few people fall right in line with this way of thinking.

Admittedly, this concept seemed more prevalent when I was a teenager and into early adulthood. Music charting was based around album sales, as this was long before streaming essentially took over the music world. Top 40, Rock, R&B, Country … everyone had a category. And demographics led one to believe there was no reason for you to stray out of it. “Your peers listen to it. Why don’t you?”

Bull.

This is just one man’s opinion, but with the benefit of hindsight and experience, it seems to me that what consultants were really doing was finding new ways to segregate music in America.*

My love for all kinds of music got me ridiculed more than a few times by my peers. My world was supposed to be rooted in Prince, the Jacksons, or Chaka Khan. How dare I also enjoy Bruce Springsteen, The Cars, and King Crimson! From where did I get the nerve?

From the pure love of MUSIC, that’s where!

To my mind, there are only three kinds of music in this world: music I enjoy; music I don’t enjoy; and music I haven’t heard yet. The sounds can come from anywhere and anyone. As Robert Fripp once said, “Music is for anyone brave enough to give it ears.” And that is how I choose to live my musical life.

When I was in the military, I shared a dorm room with a guy named Steve. I used to drive him crazy with my genre-defying music tastes. It was nothing for me to bounce from Miles Davis to Rush to Beethoven. More than once, I heard him utter, “Will you make up your mind?” The funny thing is, by the time we parted ways for new assignments, I had him doing the same thing!

It’s nothing to me to declare “God Only Knows” by The Beach Boys as my favorite song (despite not being a Beach Boys fan). I love having Johnny Cash’s Love, God, Murder box set on my media shelf. I have zero problem telling people that Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” often reduces to me to tears. I can say with a straight face that Saturday Night Fever is one of the strongest pound-for-pound movie soundtracks you’ll ever hear.+ I mean, who cares? It’s all music!

I don’t need some guy in a suit staring at pie charts to tell me what kind of music to enjoy. I can do that by myself! When I hear the sound coming through my speakers, it will either resonate with me or it won’t. It’s that simple. It could be Einar Solberg (who is playing as I write this), Margo Price, God Is An Astronaut, or Elvis Costello. I just play what feels right in the moment. I love that.

While I’ll never be completely fond of streaming, I will admit to one benefit of modern music consumption: since streamers seem to find it difficult to experience an entire album, they create playlists of their favorite tunes. And that music often seems to come from everywhere. My daughter (who is 20) actually finds it odd that people found it impossible to wander from one genre to the next without a second thought.

So, there is hope.

It’s all music. Music is life. And I won’t apologize or be embarrassed for loving every single note. Put that on your pie chart and stuff it.

*— I’ve never spent time in Europe, so I can’t speak to how things worked there. Japan — where I lived for two years — seemed a lot more open.

+ — Admittedly, this collection is no longer on my shelf. I need to remedy that.

#cirdecsongs

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I am currently at work on my second book, The Wizard of WOO: The Life and Music of Bernie Worrell

Would you like to have your album reviewed? Please contact me at cirdecsongs@gmail.com