Dance Gavin Dance just released their new single a day or so ago! It's called Midnight Crusade, and it's a masterpiece.
I'm gonna leave it below, just in case you wanna listen to it.
As you might know, Dance Gavin Dance has been one of my favorite bands for about four years now, and I really can't say that I've been this big a fan of a band for so long. They're just so inspirational and they never cease to bring a smile to my face with their melodic guitar riffs and, of course, their lead singers' golden voices. This song is no exception to this, and I can't recall another musical artist that I've loved for this long.
You know, I wanted to talk about how I'm getting better in regards to this whole breakup ordeal, but I'm not really feeling that bad about it as of late, so I'm just gonna make this post about my musical history. If that doesn't interest you, then thank you for making it this far. I'll see you in the next post, where I'll be back to the emo bullshit.
By my definition, my "musical history" can be defined as the music that has shaped who I am throughout the years. I've always kinda had this thought in my mind, and it would be cool to just put it out there so I'll always have a condensed version of all the music that defines me as a person.
Let's start off for with some of the first tracks that I remember listening to in the car with my mom. Surprisingly, a lot of my musical appreciation has come from just enjoying music with my mother on our rides to school and our other drives. I guess you can say that the first song I recall listening to that fascinated me was this song here:
Chances are, you've heard this song before. It's still as much of a banger today as it was back then. It's a lot of fun, and refreshing to listen to after all these years. I can't recall how old I was when I first heard this song, but it kinda kicks off the memories I have with music.
But I never really listened to music on my own, you know? I was just a kid, and I didn't have access to a radio. It was just my mom, and her cassette tapes with various songs on them. It wasn't until shortly after the movie Shrek 2 was released (this isn't a joke) when I truly started being interested in music. I adored this movie, and I'm not quite sure how I got my hands on the album, but I remember listening to it in the car with my mom. We loved the soundtrack, which led with Accidentally in Love by Counting Crows. Again, this album is pure dopamine, and really reflects the times when my mom and I lived in my Grandma's townhouse.
I had a bit of a classic rock and metal phase, in which I kinda got into some of the music that John, my stepfather at the time, liked. His favorite band was Iron Maiden, if that gives you any indication of the style of music I liked. It was also around this time that I took a liking to Dragonforce, with their song Storming the Burning Fields.
My first exposure to music came from, of all things, AMVs, or "anime music videos". Back before video sharing websites like YouTube were commonplace, I used to visit a site called Putfile.com, which was where I came into my budding interest for music. AMVs are basically edited clips from anime fights with a music track playing over it in place of the normal audio. The most memorable AMVs that I can recall were both Naruto-related, and featured the two songs No Reason by Sum 41 and In the End by Linkin Park. Since Linkin Park is a household name (rest in piece, Chester Bennington), I'm gonna link the former song, as I liked this one better. This is when I was around 9 years old, mind you, although I still think this song rocks.
Later, when my mom and I moved out on our own, I accrued a greater repertoire and new appreciation for music. I remember the first moment I watched My Chemical Romance's Welcome to the Black Parade for the first time. That one's one of my favorites to this day. I also got super into Green Day and Linkin Park. One year, my mom even took me to Projekt Revolution, where My Chemical Romance and Linkin Park played together in the same show. What a wonderful time to be alive.
Back in the days of MySpace, I had a crush on this girl. Her name was Jacey, and she went to my middle school. That's when I began talking to her on the now all but defunct social media site. She recommended me tons of music, siting that she liked "screamo" music. My first "screamo" song was a song by a band called "Eyes Set to Kill." Upon listening to some of their stuff while gathering the material for this post, I'm like 50% sure that the song that I heard all those years ago was the song Darling.
During these earlier middle school days, I recall stumbling across one of the most popular bands today-- Panic! at the Disco, back when they were brand new. It's my one claim of superiority among my friends. I knew about Panic! before any of my friends did, and that makes me smug and cool. The song on their page that I recall enjoying the most was the demo version of Time to Dance. It wasn't long until I found the first band I could call my favorite band of all time, which was the band Silverstein, with their songs Smashed Into Pieces and My Heroine. I loved everything they put out, and have fond memories of listening to their album "Shipwreck in the Sand" on the stereo next to my desk while I played Runescape. I also dabbled in Bring Me The Horizon's deathcore sound.
Toward the latter part of my middle school memories, I remember taking a particular liking to the band Hollywood Undead and Avenged Sevenfold (back before all the normies listened to them, of course). A Little Piece of Heaven alongside Hollywood Undead's entire discography were the soundtracks to my final days before high school. While Hollywood Undead was the band I listened to most, I was most moved by a new band I found out about during that time-- and that band was called Motion City Soundtrack.
There are four kings in my mind in regards to music. These are my all-time favorite bands, and I love (almost) everything they've put out. Of course, nobody else will agree with my top picks, but they made my life special or better in some way. These bands have helped me through some of the hardest times, and they're immortalized, no matter how much they change. These bands are:
Motion City Soundtrack
A Day To Remember
Mayday Parade
Dance Gavin Dance
I remember frequently going into Target with my grandma as a young adult, where I would constantly browse the music aisle. It was there I found a mysterious album with no band name on it. It had a picture of a dinosaur who looked terrified of the horror he was causing in the city around him. This album caught my eye every time I went to the store, and one day, I finally picked it up. I popped it into my mom's car's CD player, and I've been in love ever since. Seriously, Motion City Soundtrack is probably one of the most criminally underrated bands that exists, and the album My Dinosaur Life stands as one of my favorite albums of all time. They're the perfect example of indie rock, and they're definitely worth checking out. Here's one of my favorite tracks from the album:
High School brought more alternative sounds with The Devil Wears Prada, Pierce the Veil and I Set My Friends On Fire (I knew these guys back from the MySpace days, too, back when they were called 'The Calvary Kids'.) The two bands that best embody my high school experience, though, are Mayday Parade and A Day To Remember. They set the soundtrack to the relationship between mine and Ashley's relationship. These songs are nostalgic relics of my past, and they evoke some of my most powerful and vivid memories:
The days I shared with my World of Warcraft friends lie inside these melodies, and they're truly irreplaceable. I remember spending those lazy days with Ashley, just listening to the music I put on those mix CDs I made for her.
Speaking of mix CDs, one of the most memorable songs for me is the song Sing by My Chemical Romance, which was the song I shared my first kiss listening to. We kissed like zombies eating each other's brains, but god, does this mean the world to me, looking back.
Later on in high school, I got pretty into Fall Out Boy, and then back into Panic! at the Disco with the release of their albums Save Rock n' Roll and Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die respectively.
Finally, we have my college years. My love for Dance Gavin Dance came from a World of Warcraft friend that introduced me to the band one summer before school started. He showed me this song:
And ever since I listened to that song, I've been in love with Dance Gavin Dance, and that love has never wavered. If anything, I love their new sound more than anything, and I'm eagerly awaiting their new album on June 1!
All in all, music has been a medium through which I attribute and attack many of my memories and chapters of my life. It's a weird phenomenon, and I really can't explain it. Have you felt this way before? It's interesting.
There are plenty of artists and songs that I forgot to list here that hold memories for me, but I felt that I should keep this list condensed and abridged for the sake of my readers.
I know this isn't necessarily a worthy sendoff to a post so long like this, but I've been typing for about an hour here, so I'm pooped. I hope you (the ones who got to this point) enjoyed this stroll down memory lane for me. Even if I'm the only one who cares about this, it still means the world to me. I can't wait to see where my love for music takes me next.
Talk to you guys later, and thanks for reading!~
Yours truly,
Jacob C
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