The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

So, I was reading through some comments on a music messageboard and had to chuckle some. The conversation centered around the feeling of embarrassment when others became cognizant that they liked a particular musician or started singing the lyrics to one of their songs. My first thought when reading these comments was, "What is this, high school?" Granted, it appeared that most of these people were in their upper-teens to mid-20s, but still... Who really cares? I've never been a fan of boy-bands, country music, or most rap, but when I hear someone else listening to it, I don't think to myself, "How can they listen to that out in public like that? They should be so embarrassed! " As the saying goes, "To each their own." This is why I sometimes disregard reviews by music critics, because if a critic hates a certain musician or genre of music and is forced to review that particular band or genre, the chances run high that he or she won't care fo...

It seems like pretty common-sense to me - the more that time moves forward in the world of the arts, the more artists and their works there will be to influence others. This is why when lists are released of the most influential musicians of all time, 98.9% of them were around toward a particular genre's inception. Since I was born in the '80s and grew up in that decade as well as the '90s, I'm prone to liking musicians that were around during those 20 years. While there's nothing wrong with me enjoying groups from those two decades (well, perhaps a couple of them...), I'd be pretty wrong in laying claim that the most influential bands in the history of rock started in the '80s and '90s. There may have been bands whom were influential above all others for a certain style of rock which seemed omnipresent during a stretch of time, however, it'd be ridiculous for me to say they were the most influential bands in the history of rock. Nirvana is said to b...