hi, i'm a music addict

I've been told many times by many people that I've got weird music tastes, something I freely admit to. I have an eclectic taste in music and books (but more on books another time).

Case in point: my current iTunes playlist quite literally has everything from Coldplay's Vida La Vida to Glass Pear's Last Day Of Your Life to Patrick Doyle's awesome soundtrack to the less-awesome 1998 film Great Expectations to Chris Cornell's Scream to The Mirror/Blue Night from the musical Spring Awakening (which I rave about here) to Handel's Arrival of the Queen of Sheba.

Eclectic doesn't even begin to cover my taste in music. I listen to all sorts of music. Except metal. Metal and I have issues. Irreconcilliable differences kind of issues.

Point is, when people ask me what kind of music I like, that's a loaded question.

But music's always been a thing for me. You know how there are some songs that you'll listen to and pinpoint an exact moment where you were listening to that song in your lifetime? I do that a lot. I have my own version of the soundtrack of my life. Some songs belong with fab memories, some with bittersweet ones, and some that just make me sigh and wish I could forget that moment.

Then there are the songs from real soundtracks. I obsess over music in shows. I'm one of those with theme songs on their iTunes. And not just the famous ones like John Williams' Jurassic Park and Alan Silvestri's Forrest Gump and Clint Mansell's Requiem For A Dream. I have the theme song to W. G. Snuffy Walden's The West Wing. And that's just one out of many, many songs. (Yes, am a freak.)

And music kept me going through the disaster that was the third season of The OC and it's keeping me going on One Tree Hill despite the horrendous soap opera direction it's taking. So far The OC (and Josh Schwartz) rewarded that with an excellent fourth season. One Tree Hill's still leaving a lot to be desired for, but we'll see how that goes.

But I was just thinking about how a song or score can totally set the mood for any show. Like the explosive (and I mean that literally) premiere of the fourth season of Criminal Minds. Mark Mancina (also composer of Speed) created such an adrenaline-pumping soundtrack that I was so on the edge that my mother saying hi to me made me jump. Now that is some truly excellent scoring work. 43 minutes and I'm just completely gripped.

(Incidentally, the sound editing for that ep was way cool. Adrenaline-pumping scoring blaring out, then sudden silence except for the atmos sound of Morgan searching the empty subway train. Whoa.)

So. Point being, am music-obsessed. And proud of it. Now excuse me while I return to my music and communing with my inner whatever.