A student introduced me to Switchfoot in the spring of 2005. It was unlike any music that I was familiar with. At that time I mostly listened to Classical music and 70s music. I also enjoyed Christian contemporary music such as Amy Grant, Rich Mullins, Phil Keaggy, Jars of Clay and so many others. I didn't listen to any "hard rock" or "heavy metal." Even through the 60s I had not listened to any of that except what played on the radio from time to time. And even then I didn't particularly enjoy it and often changed stations when it played. Part of that was because my Christian world preached that this music was unhealthy and even evil. Do you remember the horrible scare of "backmasking"? Or that the beat of rock music actually tears down heart tissue? Did you know that rock music will drive you to sex and drugs? I heard much good 60s music, but I missed a lot too.
Switchfoot changed all that. Here were positive songs with positive lyrics set to "hard rock" music. And I loved it. I bought A Beautiful Letdown which contained Meant to Live, the song that influenced the direction of my vocational life. I listened to it over and over. And I bought and enjoyed several other Switchfoot CDs as well.
A couple of years after my introduction to Switchfoot, I was given an introduction to Pandora radio. I am not an early adopter of this kind of internet technology, so I didn't sign up right away. Eventually I did sign up for the free version to see what all the fuss was about. Well what it was all about was the most incredible music service of its time. As you already know, I created "radio stations" of my favorite bands and then Pandora played a steady stream of music of that genre.
One of the first stations I created was, of course, Switchfoot. Pandora then introduced me to Skillet, Red, Fireflight, BarlowGirl, and others. If Switchfoot was "hard rock", much of this was "heavy metal." Red was the hardest music I had ever listened to on purpose. I grew to love Red as much as I loved Switchfoot. There was blood in the water. Skillet and Red became my go to bands. The Red station introduced me to Thousand Foot Krutch, Kutless and other Christian bands of that type.
Roll over Beethoven was an understatement. I didn't totally abandon my love of Classical music and more traditional Christian music, but my tastes had certainly morphed. There was just something about those driving rhythms, heavy bass, radical lead guitar, synthesizers, hoarse voices and hopeful lyrics that did something for me. And it still does.
I enjoyed Pandora so much that I subscribed to the service. Now I listened to a higher quality of stereo and no commercials. Along then my son said, "Dad, you've got to download Spotify." Well I didn't have to download Spotify and I didn't. I now had the radio, the CD player, Sirrius/XM radio and Pandora. What did I possibly need with another music service? But he was persistent. "Dad, just trust me. You would love this." So I downloaded it. There in the top left corner was a search box. I learned quickly that I could type in about any song, musician or band I could think of and Spotify would find it and play it for me right then. I learned that I could create radio stations and playlists. If Pandora opened up a world of music then Spotify opened the universe. Within a few months I had subscribed to the service. and cancelled Pandora.
The thing that amazes me about the internet and music is how one good thing leads to another. And how quickly it happens. I accidentally found the Switchfoot movie Fading West on Netflix a few days ago. This morning I listened to my Fading West playlist on Spotify at the gym. I'm old enough to remember if I heard a song on the AM radio that I liked and I wanted to listen to it again, I either had to wait for the DJ to play it or ride my bicycle downtown and buy the 45 at the record store. Well it was exciting to hear the "flip side" for the first time. I bought "Turn, Turn, Turn" but "Eight Miles High" became one of my favorite Byrds songs.
So where is all this headed? I didn't know Pandora until I had it. I didn't know Red until I had Pandora. I didn't know Spotify until I had enjoyed hundreds of hours of bliss. Soon enough my son will call me and say, "Dad, there's a music service you've got to have." And I will say "No I don't." What could possibly be better than what I've got? Surely, this is as good as it gets.
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