When you pick up The Scroll, what do you usually look for? A news article, a review of a movie maybe? Or even just the pet of the month or the profiles of your classmates and friends. Perhaps you opened this article and you’re asking yourself where this is going. Well, I’m here to give you unsolicited music suggestions and to talk about what I’ve been listening to lately. Hate my music taste or genuinely take interest in it, it’s up to you.
Now you may be asking, “Raina, what do you know about music? You’re an awkward junior with dyed hair and a great sense of style.” And I thank you, but I would say my music taste is very neutral and available for everyone. I wouldn’t call it diverse, per se, but I like almost everything. It’s just stuff in the “middle” that I like the best. Except for country music, I hate country music.
To give you some much needed lore, both of my parents are into heavy metal. My dad more so than my mom, but they both really enjoy the band Slipknot. When I was little, you could hear my small 4-year-old voice screaming “psychosocial!” in the back seat of my mom’s car. The one thing that stopped me from growing up to be this heavy metal kid was my grandparents showing me actual children’s music and me, a child, falling in love with it. Thus sparked my interest in Kidz Bop and Katy Perry. Obviously from there, my music taste has gotten exponentially better.
I still do enjoy the occasional Katy Perry song, but middle school me found out that Panic! At The Disco existed and soon, I was really into the pop rock genre. From there, I discovered bands like Set It Off, All Time Low, Waterparks, and soon, my current favorite band: My Chemical Romance. Call me emo all you want, but I fell in love with Gerard Way’s voice the first time I heard it.
Anyways, because The Scroll (sadly) won’t be monthly anymore, it gives me more time to discover new music I like and share it with you guys. You’ll see a lot of recurring genres and bands, but I swear I try to branch out as much as I can. I have this Spotify playlist that’s always 10 songs, and when I start to like a new song I’ll add it and then take off a song I’m tired of. I listen to that playlist on repeat constantly, so of course I have to really love the songs that go on my playlist. That playlist is going to be the main highlight of these articles. I’ll stop rambling now, let’s get into what August-September Raina has been listening to.
The first few songs on this playlist are rather miscellaneous. To be more specific, the Demon Slayer opening, Loverboy by A-Wall, Dog Days Are Over by Florence + The Machine, Need To Know by Doja Cat, and finally CORPSE’s new song whose name wouldn’t be appropriate to put in the school newspaper. Loverboy, Need to Know, and Dog Days Are Over I found via tiktok. I recently started Demon Slayer, which is why the opening is on that playlist, and I’ve been a fan of CORPSE for a while now. All of these songs are relatively mainstream and good for almost everyone.
The other five songs on the playlist are all by The Front Bottoms. My best friend loves them so I’ve been getting into them more recently. It’s hard to pinpoint a certain genre (the best word I can think of to describe it is “angsty”) but if you’re a fan of songs with deep meanings and guitar, you should listen to The Front Bottoms.
I’ll have more for you when the next issue of The Scroll rolls around. If you happen to see me in the halls and want me to talk about a certain song or genre, or even just want to suggest a song to me, you’re welcome to. Either way, I hope you end up enjoying whatever music I’m listening to.