I never thought there would be a day when I would listen to top 40 music, but that day came at an odd time in my life. I honestly didn’t have a choice in the matter. I grew up listening to anything but top 40, and I thought I had avoided it all the way around. I never liked it, and perhaps that was due to the nature of the music that was on the charts in the early eighties when I was just turning ten. I never liked it, and that shaped my music choices for years to come.
I was in my mid-twenties before I listened to top 40 music. I had a data entry job, and we were allowed to listen to headphones while we worked. I got some and took them in on my very first day, and was disappointed to find that they only stations I could pick up played top 40 music. I could have listened to CDs, but the CD player went through an entire set of batteries in just one day. I just couldn’t afford to buy that many batteries. At that time, the thought of buying rechargeable batteries had not crossed my mind.
I tried to work without the music, but because data entry can be so mind-numbing, I found that I was going crazy. I decided that the music, even top 40 music, would help with the problem. I started listening and found that I liked some of it more than I thought I would. There was still much of it that I could not stand, but it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I even went out and bought a few CDs, but I have since stopped listening to them.
I was at that job for about six months before they laid me off and I went on to other things. I have not really listened to top 40 music since then, but at least I now know that it won’t kill me. I know there are many that love it, but I can’t say it was any more special than anything else out there. People’s tastes in music are almost as unique as their personalities, and I have found that those who listen to top 40 music tend to be more mainstream everywhere else in their lives. That’s not really a bad thing, that’s just not the person I have always been.
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