i re-affirm that playing music is better than religion, chocolate, sex or whatever have you

✱

(2025mar14)

I was raised in family that wasn’t particularly musical. Nobody sang or danced or played any instruments. My dad did like some songs from old Tamil movies, and my mom was a fan of ABBA, Bee Gees and The Carpenters. For me, music was something I properly started to get into somewhere around puberty, which roughly coincided with when my family got cable TV and I got to watch MTV. My first two albums were Avril Lavigne’s Let Go (2002) and Disturbed’s Believe (2002), and I’m very pleased to note that both of those artists are still active today. I discovered Disturbed via stickdeath.com. I had a great English teacher who introduced us to Bjork and Radiohead, and I got super into Radiohead for some time. I found a copy of OK Computer at a 2ndhand store for S$5 and it was one of my most prized possessions. My other two favorite CDs would be… an EP by a local band, Ronin, and a promo copy of Paramore’s debut album All We Know Is Falling, which I got for free at a local gig where CDs were being tossed into the crowd.