The type of music you listen to can often define you as a person and it can also define the period of your life. I never quite realized this until I started watching my sisters grow up. With them it started with Justin Bieber and One Direction, but once they hit middle school that music was not cool anymore. That was when they went through what they now call their “emo” phase. During this time it was all about My Chemical Romance and Pan!c at the Disco, but during this phase they also took an interest in what could be considered “real” rock and roll, one of my sisters being especially interested in Queen.

Now they are about to start high school and once again they have moved on to bigger and better things, K-Pop. This was not the direction my music appreciation or music taste evolved towards when I started high school – that was my rap and R&B phase. They have decided to not only appreciate music of their own country but music that is popular in other countries.

I have not only witnessed these changes in my sisters alone but also within myself. Before I started college the only music I wanted to listen to had to be by One Direction or anyone in association with them. I just would not open up to any other genre or band.

But that all changed when I took my sisters to see one of their “emo” bands and as I watched them on stage I could not help but bounce and dance to the music myself. This appreciation continued to grow as we went to see more and more of the bands that they liked, some of which I realized I used to listen to myself when I was their age. Although my sisters brought me back to my pop punk, “emo” days, an internship I did opened my eyes to another genre, one I had completely avoided my whole life: country music.

When you live in the south, country music surrounds you and it is almost pushed upon you and I refused that force for as long as I could, until I interned at a country radio station. Since then every once in a while someone in my car will get a little surprised when a country song starts playing from my playlist and I have even been to a few country concerts.

When we’re younger we are so close-minded to what is cool and what our friends are into that we refuse to really appreciate all the music that is around us. But as we grow and go through the phases of life or as I like to call them, phases of music, we learn to appreciate and accept more of the music world. I still catch my sister rocking out to Queen and if I put a One Direction song on in my car you better believe that they know all the words. Although they may be focused on one genre and a few bands right now, by the time they hit college their playlists will consist of more music genres then I can possibly imagine.