Anyone who has known me for more than 2ish years knows that for the longest time, and I mean for the LONGEST TIME, country music has been practically the only genre I have ever listened to. I mean sure, sometimes I would listen to some random pop songs I’d hear on the radio, or “rock” bands like the Goo Goo Dolls or Vertical Horizon with my Dad, but country was always kinda my homebase genre.
Now I’d say it is still my homebase genre. I mean, it is what I grew up on after all, but in the recent, maybe 8ish months, I have greatly expanded my listening preferences.
As of right now, the main artist I spend my time listening to is Sam Barber. In fact, I just performed Indigo with my girlfriend at my high school variety show (which went amazing). His music is so simple yet deeply emotional, and his lyrics evoke the same set of emotions as the music. I have a similar notion for Lord Huron as well.
The music of Lord Huron is interesting for me, because it sounds like, specifically Lone Pine, California. For some context, my family and I went on a trip to California in late 2025, and as part of the trip, we passed through Lone Pine to visit the ghost town of Cerro Gordo. Now, on this trip, I didn’t even know Lord Huron existed, but just months later, my brain started to assign the sound of their music to that area. Why? I couldn’t tell you. All I know is that most Lord Huron songs sound like Lone Pine. Regardless, their albums have been on rotation on my morning drives to school since mid-April.
Now the title of this post is The Beatles and my changing music tastes, yet I haven’t mentioned The Beatles once yet. Could this be because of my poor planning? Yes, but I’d prefer to say that it is because I needed to provide this context first before moving into the main/last topic of the post.
The Beatles are a band I have rarely ever listened to, aside from their popular few songs I’ve heard on the radio a few times in my life. However, as of the last few weeks, I have begun to listen to their albums on repeat quite often, primarily The White Album and Help! These two feature my current favorites, Blackbird and Yesterday. Yes, I know they are both very popular songs of theirs, but I still love them, and I can see why they are popular.
Anyways, all of this sums up to say, as I’ve gotten older, more kinds of music have started to catch my ear and become favorites. I feel as though I can pick out little details of more music now, and that leaves me with more of a deeper connection to the melodies, lyrics, and song as a whole. It’s a very beautiful thing, and I look forward to continuing this trend in my life.
— Ethan