Evolution

For years and years I'd noticed that every time my brother turned on his music, the pleasant ambiance on the second floor of our house was destroyed by a violent alt/indie/experimental force. It's not to say I didn't like my brother's music; it's just that Beck, Keane, Muse, Sufjan, et al. on endless repeat occasionally made my brain hemorrhage.

The first thing I noticed about my now-beau when I friended him on Facebook three years ago was that he and my brother had nearly identical musical taste. This meant that Sean was probably a pretentious, pseudo-indie kid who drank a lot of coffee, read books by Camus and Sartre, and had at one time attempted to learn the guitar (he turned out to be just dandy, in case you were wondering). Still, when Sean and I started dating I grudgingly asked my brother if he would gently introduce me to some of his horrid music so that I could relate to the new man in my life. He did as I asked, but the music wouldn't stop being horrid.

When my newly-minted boyfriend started playing his iPod in the car during dates and gifting me with mixed CDs, I recognized most of what I heard, but somehow it was no longer horrid - it was good. Suddenly I was inundated with Coldplay, Oasis, Death Cab for Cutie, Counting Crows, The Shins, The Verve, Incubus, Iron and Wine and instead of plugging my ears, I sang along. I made requests. I collected discographies. Little brother's music, once shunned and belittled, found its way on to my iPod.

Trey's a mite displeased that Sean's influence over my musical education was stronger than his, but he got over it long enough to endow me with the newest Keane CD on my birthday. We agree that the first song is baller and that the subsequent ones are lovely, but Trey contends that their previous offering was better. I'm still undecided.

Now I am faced with a terrible, head splitting dilemma about which ringtone I should buy to replace the one I'm currently using: Ella Fitzgerald's Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas is lovely, but it's also very six days ago. Should I buy a ringtone off of Keane's new CD or should I buy my absolute favorite Keane song from their older CD? If I decide to buy from the new CD, I'm faced with a whole new set of questions: "Spiralling" or "Perfect Symmetry"? "You Haven't Told Me Anything" or "The Lovers are Losing"? Should I really be losing sleep over this? Perhaps these are questions best left to the music snobs in my life.