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I was raised in a relatively conservative Christian household - a son of a pastor of youth, music, and basically everything else that wasn’t preaching on Sunday morning or visiting the old people. Homeschooled too, all the way through. It wasn’t until I was 15 years old that I finally started to encounter a wider range of music, outside of Contemporary Christian, some heavily-Jesus-themed music in a subsection of genres, classical and, occasionally, Chicago that I was exposed to by my parents. Of course, I also encountered the top of the top charts pop elsewhere.
Since then, I've done my best to barrel through as much music as I possibly could, with my tastes constantly evolving and changing as I was exposed to new things - but I've barely scratched the surface. There’s a lot I could unpack & explore concerning how that lack of… context? for greater media, culture, literature, and music, has and still affects me, made me who I am today. This may be the start. I think that lack of context even had some positives.
Here are my top 100 songs, as they stand at the time I finally force myself to stop with the list making and start the writing - Wednesday, Dec. 4th, 2024 at 9:44pm. Some will have stories, others won’t. I’ll explain myself sometimes, often I won’t have an explanation. Okay - I’ll still have to change the list, because I’m starting writing and just cut it down to 98 songs because I realized #100 didn’t deserve its spot. By no means is this a list meant to be objective as that would be impossible for me to create - I’ve missed too many of the greats & still get exposed to more of them every day. But this is my list.
If you want to listen along, I’ll do my best to link every song to my prefered version of it on Youtube & there’s also a Spotify playlist for each batch (and eventually all 100). I hope you enjoy the songs I love and that have shaped the last 13 years of, well, me. :)
Songs 100-91 + Interlude: Indy Won The Super Bowl When Prince Played In the Rain
Songs 90-81 + Interlude: I've Listened to Jimi Hendrix Once
Songs 80-71 + Interlude: I Watch One Piece for the Soundtrack
Songs 70-61 + Interlude: I Was A Musician Once, I’d Like to Try Again Please
60-51 (Jan 3, 2025)
50-41 (Jan 10, 2025)
40-31 (Jan 17, 2025)
30-21 (Jan 24, 2025)
20-11 (Jan 31, 2025)
10-1 (Feb 7, 2025)