A love letter to pop music
Many times in my life, I felt alone.
One second — not even day, or hour, but second — you’re happily tossing a tennis ball against a brick wall, talking to yourself in a little more than a whisper, hoping the pizzeria guys can’t hear you with their back door open, but you know they can.
And the next moment you’re thrashing your head against a pillow, screaming into the fabric to push out the tears. What’s wrong with me?
I had friends, but I didn’t really have friends. I was the smartest kid in class, the neighborhood genius, the weird kid nobody understood. I couldn’t be lonelier. My mind wandered, formulating absurd stories, but I couldn’t tell any one of my peers or family members.
Instead I would make friends with older people — the 30-something woman who lived above a bar, the sweaty baseball card shop owner, the gravel-mouthed 55-year-old who drank Coors Light at 11 a.m. They leveled with me and treated me respectfully. I wasn’t the oddball smart kid to these neighborhood folks, since in a way, they were themselves oddballs.
But late at night, when I couldn’t run to anyone’s house or card shop, I’d sometimes grow deeply depressed. And some of the moments that saved me were thanks to the radio.
I had a gray radio with a tape deck — call it a mini-boombox. I rested it on the lower bunk bed until my brother came to bed, then I took it with me to my upper bunk. Right beside my ear the radio would play, and for much of my childhood, the music was pure pop.
I love pop music.
When I was very little there was Belinda Carlisle and Taylor Dayne in the minivan. My oldest brother became a regular on “Dance Party USA,” a popular weekly dance program based in Philadelphia, and so I soon started to hear the likes of Stevie B and Sweet Sensation. I listened nightly to pop radio, and my first favorite song was “Save the Best For Last” by Vanessa Williams. I would cry as I listened to it; something deep in me felt those sad notes. I was seven.
As my brothers began listening to grunge and alternative rock, I followed suit, becoming a devoted fan of Soundgarden and Stone Temple Pilots. My dad, a musician himself, got me into the Red Hot Chili Peppers. That was my first concert, at age 11.
From there my tastes expanded. I never lost my appreciation for pop ballads, as my first music purchase was Mariah Carey’s “Daydream,” on cassette, but I listened frequently to hip-hop and nu metal. The genesis of file-sharing programs allowed me to go backwards, and I soon grew a love of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd and the Police.
These days I like everything, from soul to new wave to dance to country, but I still hone in on pure pop music. If it was a Billboard hit, I probably like it. I unabashedly love “We Built This City.” Britney Spears’ first album is a near-classic. Billy Joel doesn’t get nearly enough critical credit.
And I have memories. Pop music has helped map my life, from the most important moments to the minute, which for some reason I can still vividly recall. Maybe there’s a reason for that. Maybe not. But Populistener is about all of that: This is a chronicle of pop music through the ears of a person who’s lived through pop music. I’ll write reviews, lists, essays — whatever comes to me — and every day I’ll write about a different pop song. Some songs have had an impact on my life; some haven’t. But every song means something. Music is our universal language, no matter how we listen or what we listen to. Through this site, I hope to understand that better.
Pop music didn’t save my life. No one thing does that. But it pulled me through some difficult moments, and to this day it gets me through, lifts me up, gets me high and fills me when I need it most. It has always been there, thank goodness, and hopefully it will be there for me until the end. In a way, this is me thanking something so ubiquitous, because no matter how alone I’ve felt, I was never truly alone.
With that: Please get in touch! I’d love to hear from you, especially over Twitter or email.
