"Music player?" I ask while shoving it into my back pocket and covering it up with a conveniently long tee shirt, "You must be mistaken. I don't have a music player. . .at least one with anything you'd be interested in."
It usually works pretty well, unless I've pulled that trick with the person before.
"No, really. I want to see your Ipod. Maybe there's something I've heard of on there."
Thinking of the three Eagles songs, four Sheryl Crows, two Queens, and the Twilight soundtrack I uploaded by mistake, I hand it over. Familiarity sets in- I notice a glazed look in the eye as they skim through my albums. They hand it back as quickly as they had taken it, but their knowledge of me is now tainted. She is the quiet one, the actress, the sweet one, but she also likes. . .showtunes.
So, normally, I just enjoy them quietly and I don't get too much flack about it. I figured people just don't understand them. It never occured to me that anyone thought anything bad about them. Until today, when my mother and I went to go paint pottery at a little shop downtown. We live in a town in the upper Midwest part of the United States, and while it isn't the least urban place one could live, it's also just rural enough that people fancy themselves cowboys and cowgirls, especially when they own no farmland. Country music follows me everywhere, and, apparently to even out the fact that I was having fun painting pottery, God decided to smack incessant country music in my face to turn it into my own personal circle of hell. After the third song about how everyone should follow George W Bush's moral code when the man was clearly already two years out of office, I've had just about enough of Mr.twangy twang.
"God I hate country music. Can we make it stop somehow?"
"Good luck with that." My mother says, glaring at the woman placing items into the kiln. I glare at her too. But mind control clearly isn't working. The radio continues to blare country as loud as ever.
"It's just such awful music," I say, "You could probably replace all the words with gibberish in a Southern accent and people would still eat it up. It's garbage."
My mother snorts
"Well, at least we instilled some good music taste into you."
"What do you mean? I've always hated country."
"And thank God. Your father and I hate country too."
"I like good music! Musical theatre has good music!"
My mother rolls her eyes and gets back to painting her gravy boat. I watch her for a moment.
"I've met other people who like musical theatre!"
"Who?"
"Well. . .most of them were gay men. . ."
There is an awkward silence as we go back to painting, and all I can think of is why the fan base of the music matters at all. Punk people listen to punk music, emo people listen to emo music, Midwesterners listen to country music, and musical theatre people listen to musical theatre music. So what if the guys who listen to it often end up being as straight as an "S"? It doesn't make the music any less relatable or good. Sondheim's compositions contain some of the most complex vocal and instrumental combinations ever created. Jason Robert Brown writes constantly about harrowing, deep emotion. I simply don't understand the stigma. But I guess what it all boils down to is something my mother said when we got home.
"There's nothing wrong with it really. It's just not on the radio."
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