When Senior Parvir Aujla was 13, a friend gave him the Beach Boy’s classic 1966 album, Pet Sounds. For the first time, Aujla experienced music that was different than the typical top 40 of the day. For Aujla, the music of the 21st century had already grown repetitive, and this new type of music opened up his world. There was no auto tune, no computers, and no back up dancers. It was just a group of guys, not much older than him, going out and making music with a couple of guitars. “The unique rhythms made me instantly fall in love with this classic music,” he explains.
Often times, high school serves as a melting pot of numerous musical tastes and preferences. Within one group of friends, one can find someone who likes everything from 90’s grunge to big band jazz of the 1920’s. There are many different avenues in which someone can get introduced to a certain type of music.
For Aujla, The Beach Boys led to a sort of search for self-discovery. “After I received that Beach Boys CD, I really just wanted to start exploring,” says Aujla. “I really just wanted to see what the world had to offer.”
Junior Patrick Lin had a similar experience. “I’ve always been a sort of old soul kind of guy,” Lin explains. “I was into Michael Bublé and traced it back to Tony Bennett. From there I got into listening to Frank Sinatra,” he explains. “The music just makes you feel really sophisticated. It is good music, with good melodies. Sinatra’s voice is amazing and there is a very pure quality to it because all the guys in his band are just great at what they do.”
For some people, this seems to be a common flaw in the music of today. Not enough of it is really what would be considered “pure” or “meaningful” anymore. Even after Jay-Z’s song “Death of Auto-Tune” was released nearly three years ago, Auto-Tune still seems pretty prevalent in today’s music. Large portions of the Top 40 music of today has large amounts of computerization added to them.
This may be explained by the emergence of the Internet and how easy it has become to create your own music. Aujla explains that, “There were just more artistic qualities to the music. You actually needed musical talent to create music. Now anyone can just sing into their computer and call it music, whereas back then it took real talent.”
Senior Marvin Yang, a fan of jazz music, expresses, “the music of today is really just too planned. You rarely ever see people up on the stage playing trumpets or hitting drums anymore. Now its really just speakers blaring a premade beat, and then just a singer.”
A lot of what goes into enjoying a certain type of music can be attributed to understanding the music. If one feels more connected to a certain type of music, it makes sense that they would be drawn to it. Yang experienced this through his participation in his school’s jazz band. “I got into jazz during middle school. After I began playing it, I was really able to understand it a lot better. Once you understand the music, you are able to really appreciate what goes into it,” explains Yang.
Aujla saw that one gift changed his view on how great music sounds through the Beach Boys. Sometimes, all it really takes is one Beach Boys album to change your perspective on music and in life.
