My Journey towards Mainstream Music

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I was in my Jahiliyyah (Age Of Ignorence) and never liked any rock or Pop until 2006 when began to have a crush on Rachel Stevens from S Club 7 Due to the fact that She is Jewish (I am jewish) and used to be a friend of My Cousin Louise. I Had to hide my crush with her, due to me not liking pop. I was a fan of the British Comedy series The League of Gentlemen and I would watch anything with the cast of the four main people Of the League Of Gentlemen who were Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton, Mark Gatiss and Jeremy Dyson. There was no film with any of the Main 4 cast of the League Of Gentlemen so I had to find another Actor that was in The League Of Gentlemen Series and feature film League Of Gentlemens Apocalypse. So in the End of 2006 I Discovered and became a fan of Simon Pegg from Shaun Of The Dead who had a cameo in the League Of Gentlemens Apocalypea and was in the Spiderman comic relief Spoof with Rowan Atkinson and Rachel Stevens.
I knew that was not enough so later on in 2007 I liked the pop Band Divine Comedy which had Joby Talbot (who did the Music score for the League Of Gentlemen) and Neil Hannon who worked in 2004's Band Aid 20 with Rachel Stevens. Divine Comedy was my first favorite pop band and I later on began to like Travis who worked with Joby Talbot and Neil Hannon alot, plus I listened to some songs which featured Neil Hannon and Joby Talbot with Mainstream artists like Robbie Williams, Paul McCartney and Tom Jones. I knew that these bands were not compatable with S Club 7 or Rachel Stevens.
I was already interested in different cultures and histories(Particularly Indian, Islamic and Jewish Histories), so in the end of 2007 I discovered a way to exploit these interests to get into Mainstream pop. I knew that Latin music and Latin pop music was very popular in the mainstream. this would not be until the beginning of 2011 when managed to acheve this.
Islamic Spain played a big part in the Making of Latin AMerican Culture in the way of food, crafts and most importantly Music, so I moved my interest into Islamic Spain. I also became interested in the Jews of Islamic Spain under the influence on feeling equal to my celebrity crush Rachel Stevens.

In 2008, I began to be interested in the Spanish inquisition and the Spanish Empire. Since 1492 the Jews were expelled from Spain or convered to Catholicism and later expelled the Muslims in 1501 and Moriscos (Muslim converts to Catholicism in 1609). even though The Jews and Muslims were expelled, their Legacy in the Spanish empire lived on. So i became interested in Crypto Judaism in the Spanish Empire, which helped me to learn more about other people who were forced to give up their Identities by the Spanish inquisition like the Native American and Black African Slaves. This also helped me to be more open towards Christians.

Finally, On Early 2011 when I was completly absorbed to Latin American Culture. My music taste began to be more mainstream, , I began to like the Latin themed songs of Gloria Estefan, Ricky Martin, Shakira, Carlos Santana, Jennifer Lopez, Marc Anthony and Enrique Iglesias, but later On I expanded to their non Latin song and to the likes of Pitbull, Daddy Yankee plus, non Latin Artists like Will.i.am and Black Eyed Peas. In March 2011 When I discovered that Simon Fuller (The Creator Of S Club 7) was creating a new show with Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony called Q'Viva, which was also about Latin American music and Culture, I was happy with Joy.

I am very proud that I am into mainstream pop. Because of that Journey, I Learnt so much and am open as ever. I feel like that I am redeemed and can see the Light.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHPFJ1tCLg4[/youtube]
I'm gonna post this, because it's one of my favorite Russian pop songs, but live. That video just made my day, so....yeah. Sorry, if you want me to remove it, I will, but it just completely made my day. To me it's just perfect music.

Anyway, oddly, I had sorta the same journey as you. Not quite the same destination or path, but I found out, yep, pop music is where it's at. I'm not so much into mainstream American music, though, I'm not like, vehemently hating it now, and there's some stuff I like. It took a lot of balls for me to admit I like some of Lady Gaga's stuff. Alot of the reason I don't like American pop, isn't for lack of musical...whatever, but it's more for religious reasons, as I feel a lot of what's coming out nowadays is much too vulgar and obscene. Obviously not all, but it seems European and Japanese pop, at least the stuff I come across, hasn't crossed those lines quite as much yet but I have doubts it'll remain that way.

For me, going into pop music was kind of a journey. But, I found out it was the only way to be true to myself, imo. To put it shortly, let me explain. When I was a kid, my parents banned me from listening to any modern music at all, like stuff on the radio. Only "oldies" and nonrock Christian music. I grew up in an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church and yeah, my parents just threw in the oldies so they wouldn't suffer I guess. So songs about free love and drugs were all cool, but no eurodance love songs, no no, those are bad and will corrupt us. Anyway, though, I had a Bosnian babysitter, and somehow in my childhood, like my early childhood, remember hearing eurodance and Eastern European music like I just posted. And it stuck.

So for a while after my parents divorced and my mom allowed us to listen to wtf ever we wanted, I went through musical stages. At first, I tried to be popular and listen to what everyone else was listening to, then I somewhat aligned myself with the "rocker" crowd, and listened to lots of rock, classic rock, punk, etc. I started listening to rap, too. Both my tastes in those musics were a bit eclectic. At the same time, though, I saw the anime Initial D, and LOVED the eurobeat in that show. So, I eventually downloaded like every Initial D OST I could get, and just really got into eurobeat. I still listened to rock music, and like, I guess I still put up the public persona of listening to rock and rap music, but eurobeat and eurodance was like, my true love. Then I got expelled from school, and suddenly, it didn't matter at all what I listened to. Then I got HUGE into eurobeat, eurodance, and other electronic music.

To make the story short, as more bad stuff happened in my life, I no longer wanted to hear all the negativity anymore. That, and when I became more serious about being Christian, I just felt like, odd convictions I guess, to not listen to the negative music as much anymore. Basically, I stopped caring about what people thought of me as much, and just listened to what I truly liked, which happened to be, well, pop music. Usually not American pop music, but pop music nonetheless. Yeah, it was really a matter for me, of basically being true to myself.

I mean, we're both different obviously, I don't foresee myself liking most mainstream pop anytime soon, but it took a lot to really like, "let go" of my pretentiousness and just listen to what I actually like. You have to be true to yourself, you know? That doesn't mean there's no place for like, "complicated" music, not by any means, I listen to lots of really "complicated" music, too, but my bread and butter happens to be pop, though, and that's the conclusion I came to. So it seems to me, you went through some similar stuff, and yeah. We both had to "come out of the closet" and be terribly uncool with our musical choices. Yeah, we like what we like. I mean, it's pretty not cool, but it is what it is.

One other weird thing, I guess what happened was, I basically listen to the music I wanted to hear as a little kid that my parents suppressed. So now, I listen to it with complete zeal and fervor now. So it's almost like God made my parent's mistake "work" it's just really really cool to me. Ironic, extremely ironic, though, but in a good way. Now that I'm old, I can hear all the music I wanna hear that I vaguely remember as a kid. It's great.