Left to my own devices

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" That was something kids seemed to be asked a lot when I was growing up (which is becoming increasingly further back in time as the years go by). I'm not sure if that is a question commonly put to children today, but it was, for me, a pretty exciting query. At least during my single-digit years. It conjured up an open landscape of possibilities. I don't know.. perhaps I'd be an astronaut? An artist? Mayor? When I entered my teenage years, and began high school, the question -- no longer posed as much by adults, but more to myself -- generated anxiety more than anything. It was crunch time. Crap - what do I want to be?

People who know me have often heard me say that 1993 was the best year for music . That's only a half-joking statement. Subjective? Yes. Truth? Probably. Regardless, a lot of my music choices at that time came from listening to the radio, or watching MTV, VH1, or Friday Night Videos . That began to change once I graduated high school in 1994. A new world opened-up. I started attending the local community college, and began going to the local LGBT nightclub, where there was all sorts of music played across the booming speaker system. So many sub-genres of dance music. Being exposed to that every week was eye-opening. I ended up meeting a lot of different people at the club, many of whom were varied and interesting, and had eclectic tastes in music. Not all of it interested me. There was one guy I met while out one night whose apartment I visited a week or two later -- purely on a friendship level -- and whose CD collection was so humongous that it rendered me numb. It was too much t...

There was a free sampling of Sirius/XM Radio over the Labor Day weekend, and so I was able to partake of its offerings for a few days. I had the satellite radio package for a free, three-month trial after purchasing a car last year, but while it contained a nice variety of music and information channels, it wasn't enough for me to sign-up and become a paying customer. And this weekend reminded me of a glaring issue with one of its stations -- 90s on 9 (or, music from the 1990s, on the 9th channel of Sirius/XM 1). The issue, dear reader, is that the 1990s presents too-diverse of a line-up to provide a coherent listening experience. The aforementioned issue (opinion?) isn't a new one. I can remember sitting at my friend Terry's apartment, circa 1997, when he remarked upon the diversity of Top 40 radio for the decade. I consider Terry to be somewhat of an authority when it comes to the world of music, and so what he said carried some weight. I thought about it, and ...