Back in 2011, I used Pandora a lot. I used it primarily to listen to music while doing homework in college. I realized that when I listened to music, I felt a lot happier than when I didn’t. During the first half of 2011, I usually played the Today’s Hits station on Pandora. Back then, I was really stuck in my music ways. I rarely wanted to listen to music I didn’t know. I know what you’re thinking. How did I like music at all if I didn’t like listening to things I didn’t already know? I’m not sure how to explain it, exactly. I just know that I didn’t enjoy listening to music I didn’t know. (Yes, yes, I overused the word “know”.) I guess I gained new music likes from listening to the radio and from hearing music at random places like malls, the bowling alley, coffee shops, etc. Anyway, while I was living on campus during my four years of undergraduate courses, I went to the gym Monday-Thursday to attend group fitness classes. In these classes, I was exposed to current “hit” music, which I usually enjoyed. So, when I was doing homework, I would often listen to Pandora’s hit station because I wanted to hear the music I heard in my fitness classes. Also, I wasn’t extremely familiar with all the songs that Pandora played on this station, so it wasn’t super distracting.
I knew about Adele’s Rolling in the Deep when it became popular because it came up a lot on Pandora. Whenever this song started playing on Pandora, I would skip to the next song because I had never heard it before and I didn’t want to. I distinctly remember the first time Rolling in the Deep started playing, I thought, “Rolling in the Deep, that’s a silly song title. What’s it about? Money? (because I pictured someone rolling in money) I don’t want to listen to this. I don’t know who Adele is.” Yes, I also chose my music based on whether I had heard other songs by that artist before. I still often use this “strategy” today. So, I never actually listened to the song until Linkin Park performed a cover of it at the 2011 iTunes Festival.
When Linkin Park introduced this song at the iTunes festival, I recognized the title. I think I remembered it being the song that I had skipped so many times on Pandora without even listening to it. I was captivated as Linkin Park performed this cover. Well, let’s face it, I was probably mostly captivated by Chester.
