The biggest thing we try to achieve here at theMonthlyJamm is good music. But I’d like to think a second goal is diversity in taste and introduction to new artists, lesser known folks.

When I was in high school, I used to caveat my response to “What kind of music do you like?” by saying “Well, all – except country of course. Gross.” But then something strange happened in my freshman year at Ohio State: I was introduced to foreign concepts like 4-H and Corn Queens and the people who did these things. This isn’t to say that my native Nevada was a stranger to farming culture, just that I had never been exposed to it. Nor had my peers. At the time, we were all bumping indie and alternative stuff. When we shared music, it all sounded pretty much the same. And herein lies the oft-discussed problem of living in a vacuum.

When you and your friends all like the same kind of music, you will keep listening to that same kind of music and your tastes will likely stay the same. Static. Even if you remove the social factor, there is still the matter of your individual taste. This is something we cultivate over time and it is, for the most part, a good thing. We are all entitled to our own opinions about what is good music. But even an individual taste can be limiting as you scan the same pop playlists on Spotify over and over again or turn to the same country radio station every morning. There are applications of this that go far beyond music as well. Read the same news, the same perspectives everyday and you will likely adopt those perspectives. Eventually, you’ll only search for and truly digest the information which confirms your point of view. In music, perhaps you stay a lifelong indie fangirl who despises any mention of country.

I like takeaways, so here’s one: you ought to go outside of your comfort zone, or you risk being stale. I am a firm believer in not being stale: in music, in news, in work.

We will now return to my freshman year of college, in which I find myself at odds with one of my roommates, dearest Sarah.

When Sarah played Kenny Chesney for the first time in our 300 square foot dorm for 4 girls (indeed, that means an average of 75 square feet per girl), I responded in the way I had always responded to country music, “Oh God no.” She shot me back a quizzical look, quizzical being a fun adjective I attempt to use once a month. Here now I’ve filled my quota this month.

She said: “You don’t like Kenny Chesney?”

I said: “Not just Kenny Chesney. All country music.”

She said: “You don’t like country?”

I said: “Yes, that’s what I’ve just said.”

She said: “No way! You have to like at least this song. Here wait.”

And then she played another country song. And I didn’t like it.

I said: “I don’t like it.”

She said: “What?! I’m going to get you to like at least one country song before freshman year is done.”

And thus began Sarah’s mission to convert me into a truck drivin’, red, white & blue wearin’, beer drinkin’, country music lover. This is what I thought country music was. And yes, some of it does make reference to beer and pickup trucks. But then something even stranger than the existence of Corn Queens happened as Sarah kept playing country during party pregames, post-studying and post-Netflix. I started to like country music.

The realization was at first slight, unconscious. I would find myself humming a Tim McGraw melody in the shower. I’d quickly snap out of it – good God, Rachel, what next? Would I vote Republican in the next primaries? But slowly, gradually, I could no longer deny that there were indeed some songs within the subset of all country songs that I enjoyed.

And from then on, my taste in music had expanded. Because of a change in my environment, I was forced to listen to something which I, by my own doing, had blocked from my life, had presumed terrible in its entirety. There is a quote from either Ralph Waldo Emerson or Oliver Wendell Holmes (it is disputed who actually said this first, but we can rest assured knowing that it was someone with three names): “The mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.”

Thank you, Mr. Three Names, this is absolutely true. And now we arrive back here to the very intent of theMonthlyJamm.

We’re here to expose you to all sorts of music and all sorts of musicians. Not every song will be a 180 from the other (can you imagine going from experimental electronica to bubble gum pop to hardcore metal and then back again? Yikes.), and yes, pop is a rather dominant genre. But in every playlist, we hope there’s something a little different than what you’ve heard before.

Cheers,

theMonthlyJamm