Growing up, Fleetwood Mac was superior to the Jonas Brothers.
As a kid, you pick up a lot from your parents: their language, their style, their interests. Because you don’t know any better, slowly their favourite things start to become your favourite things.
So, as someone who has a musician as a parent, I became immersed in the world of 70s and 80s music whether I liked it or not.
With speakers specifically placed in every room of the house—including the bathroom—sitting in silence became an impossible task. Even when we left the house, with no one home but our dogs, my parents left the music running.
By the time I was 10, there was no escaping the amalgamation of classic rock creatives and interestingly named innovators in the music industry. While of course, current pop hits were still present with Taylor Swifts “Love Story” and Miley Cyrus’ “The Climb” lyrics intertwined in my mind, I also fell in love with Huey Lewis & The News, Fleetwood Mac, Electric Light Orchestra, Journey, and Hall & Oats—all artists that played on the classic rock station in my house.
My parents weren’t intentionally trying to force culture down my throat or curate an environment that would ensure matching music interests between us—though they liked Taylor Swift just as much as me. It was simply that their ion for music was so central to who they were it penetrated every aspect of their life, and as a result, my own.
I found the beauty in this music effortlessly. Soul-pop confectionaries undercut messages of love, adoration, and romantic struggles. The sounds were always groovy—something you couldn’t help but dance and sing to regardless of whether the lyrics discussed distress or love. Sometimes the line between the two blurs, anyways.
While I couldn’t yet understand the meaning of a romantic love, I knew what love was because I had family who I loved—and we all loved this music. It created an environment where I could bond with my parents in a way that would’ve been unachievable had we listened to the trending pop artists at the time like the Jonas Brothers or Justin Bieber.
Instead, I can dance around my kitchen with my mother singing Electric Light Orchestra’s “Evil Women” and Huey Lewis & The News’ “If This Is It.” I can go on two-hour drives with my dad up to our cottage and not say a word, but both sing along to Hall & Oates’ “She’s Gone” and Fleetwood Mac’s “Go Your Own Way”—amongst so many others.
The relationship I had with my parents not only impacted my love for this music—and music in general—but expanded my music taste into directions I wouldn’t have otherwise found on my own.
Classic rock music soon felt like home to me.
My ion for it soared beyond basic enjoyment of tempo and pitch and soon tethered itself to a reminder of my family. It latched onto the environment I first experienced it in.
Hearing smooth rock tunes was a reminder of the first time I felt love—whether that was a love for my parents and sister or for the music itself, it didn’t matter. But it’s a love I wouldn’t have found had I stayed within the trending billboard hits.
I could’ve gone my entire life listening to Taylor Swift and Taylor Swift only, but expanding my horizons and giving into something new fostered a love for an interest I would’ve never found otherwise.
It’s a reminder that residing in your creative comfort zone can limit your own enjoyment, diversity, and experience. So, expand your horizons. Be open to the interests and hobbies your family and friends enjoy. The impact your environment and the people in it have on you are essential in opening your eyes to new interests, hobbies, and experiences. There’s more to your interests than what you have barricaded yourself with.
As much as Taylor is a music icon, so is Stevie Nicks.
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