Hi. My name is Amy and I’m addicted to music. Not just one type of music, but all kinds.
I’m not sure when my obsession began, but I know it hasn’t always been like this. I used to be just a social music listener. Maybe it started when I was a freshman in high school and received my first CD player for Christmas. Or maybe it was when I was 16 years old and went to my first U2 concert. Whatever its origins, my love for music has gone from a relaxing pastime to a full-fledged addiction.
I currently own exactly 158 CD titles, and another 124 on cassette. Far from being one-sided, my music collection includes alternative, grunge, punk, classic rock, hard rock, rap, funk, ska, country, jazz, electro-pop and everything in between.
I have memberships to three different CD clubs and regularly make purchases from each. Each month when the catalogues appear in my mailbox, I tell myself I’m not even going to look at them, but without fail, the promises of two-thirds off any CD or, better yet, two free selections with any one I buy at regular price draw me in and then it’s all over.
Do I listen to all of these CDs and cassettes? Of course not. After their novelty wears off, about 85 percent of them just sit prettily in their racks, waiting for that one time in years I may decide to pull them out of their jewel cases and slip them into my stereo. And then there are my timeless, favorite few which will probably reside in my CD changer for the rest of eternity and are listened to over and over and over again.
I can’t walk into any room in my house without turning on a radio. Music is a constant factor in my life, even when I’m studying or doing homework. It’s like I can’t even think without the background noise it provides. I could easily live without television (after all, if I even turn on the TV, it’s usually to check out the new videos on MTV), but if my radio was taken from me I’d slowly go insane.
In the past year, the obsession has only gotten worse, as I’ve also become addicted to concerts, thanks to a friend whose obsession goes beyond even mine.
The two of us made a fateful mistake about a year ago when we went to see R.E.M. together. Since then, we’ve seen Bush, No Doubt, the Goo Goo Dolls (twice), Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Alanis Morissette, Hootie and the Blowfish, Better Than Ezra and the Wallflowers (twice). And I still have pairs of tickets to Stone Temple Pilots, the Dave Matthews Band and Smashing Pumpkins, all within the next month, tacked to my bulletin board. Yes, I’ll go to almost any concert, regardless of the artist, if someone invites me.
Only a person as crazy as me would be heartbroken that I missed Oingo Boingo’s farewell concert last Halloween and the KROQ Weenie Roast last summer. I was also distraught that I had to work last weekend and missed my chance to purchase tickets to the upcoming, sold out Counting Crows concerts.
A highlight for me this past month wasn’t when I received a good grade on a test after studying all weekend or got together with a friend I hadn’t seen in ages, but when I met the three members of Better Than Ezra after one of their shows at a club. Pretty sick, huh? In case you were wondering, they were a group of down to earth, genuinely nice guys.
My addiction is slowly but surely getting out of control. Some of my friends attribute it to the fact that I want to get all this concert-going out of my system while I’m still in Southern California, before I move next year to the small town reality of Idaho. But that still doesn’t explain all the CDs.
What can I say? Listening to music is my life. Sometimes it makes me wonder why I’m not choosing a career in radio.
