Blog No. 5
I can remember the first time I heard Ben Folds Five. 
My brother had the CD and as I was walking by his room I heard it. It caught me. I was amazed. The first chance I had I went to the mall and bought it. I listened to it almost every day, riding my bike back and forth to school, that year. To this day I am a fan of Ben Folds and get a sense of enjoyment every time I hear one of those old songs on the radio.
I can’t remember the first time I heard Sound Garden, but I do remember hating it. I was the kind of music that was played, (over and over again), on the radio. I would change the station and wonder how that kind of crap made it.
The bizarre part is, now when I hear it on the radio I think, “you know what? That’s pretty good. I’m glad it’s on the radio). I can’t make heads or tails of it. And it isn’t some sort of fluke with one specific song, or band. There are all kinds of music I used to hate, that now, I enjoy.
I realize that I am a different person than I was all those years ago. Not that anyone changes all that much. I do enjoy tea a lot more than I used to, but that could be a cultural change.
So here is my dilemma. Has my taste in music changed, do I dislike new music so much I am driven to the music I remember, or am I clinging to the past like a child to his favorite toy? Maybe I am legitimately maturing into a person with more broad tastes? I honestly don’t know.
I should say, I don’t hate all new music; just most of it; then again, it could be that I hate the radio. I have always been against the radio’s tendency to play only the new music that sounds exactly the same as the music that is already on the radio. Then when something new does make it, everything else ends up sounding the same as that. Then I end up complaining, just like this.
If you happen to be interested in something new that I do like, check out Inoke Errati, (I know karate), here: (http://www.myspace.com/inokeerrati). Or keep listening to the radio. I can’t really judge you for it, when I was in high school the radio completely determined the type of music I liked.
I’m sitting at my laptop with a big mug of tea and my headphones on blasting some music I used to hate, (but now seem to love), trying to figure it all out. I probably don’t even want to know the answer, if there even is one. I sure do like taking about it though.
Ben Van Dongen 
Hello Ben,
I have actually found myself facing some similar arena’s of thought. Mine tends to come in the area of books and authors, I have found myself gravitating towards books that at one time or another I had learned to ‘HATE’. One good example is ‘Catcher in the Rye’, when I took this in school the teacher I had quite literally made me HATE IT, but having gone back to read a collection of ‘Salinger(s)’ stories I found myself interested in going back to check out said book, the same thing happen with ‘Lord of the Flies’.
Your tastes in music have always been open, and the idea of going back to the past to find music that you might once have found mundane and beyond you is quite understandable. I kind of like Nirvana and when I was younger I disliked that kind of music completely, I’ll blame it on my new found desire to enjoy anything and everything that might have story to tell; good, bad or indifferent.
Nice piece here Ben, I love talking with you and when I can’t do that reading your thoughts are just a nice thing to tide me over until that next cup of Tea, or in my case Smoothie.
JC
i’ve never heard “ben fold five” before, while reading this, they came on the radio. Ben, are you a wizard? haha
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