Marginalia #4 — Shannon [BrightEye14]
Marginalia is a series of short interviews with music lovers from small corners of the internet — bloggers, reviewers, and listeners worth knowing about.
Who are you and what do you do?
I’m Shannon. I am in my late 30s and I’ve been a music obsessive for over 25 years. I am a full-time working mother so I don’t have the time to listen to music that I once did, but I still try to fit it in when I can. In addition to music, I’m also a major reader and I love to write in my personal time. I do most of my writing (and ranking) regarding music on my Rate Your Music profile, BrightEye14, which I’ve managed since 2022. I had a music-related YouTube channel off and on from 2012 to 2021, peaking at about 4,000 subscribers.
How did you get into music? Any highlights in your journey?
Music has always been around and a part of my life. I think my earliest music memories are hearing ‘Peace of Mind’ by Boston and ‘Ramblin’ Man’ by Allman Brothers Band in the backseat of the car when I was very little. My parents came of age in the ‘70s, so that’s a lot of what I heard growing up. My dad loves the Stones, Pink Floyd, Yes, Clapton and many others. My mom loves Billy Joel, Eagles, Carole King, etc. They both loved Neil Young.
The first music that I owned was all movie music–I had cassette tapes for the soundtracks to my favorite movies including The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast and Grease. My tastes really began to clarify and solidify around age 10. I listened to the radio every day and would try to tape my favorite songs onto cassette (two I remember trying to catch are ‘The Way’ by Fastball and ‘Here with Me’ by Dido).
My first concert was with the Spice Girls in 1998, which was great. My hero dad took me. By my teen years, my tastes were pretty evenly split in a three-way pie chart: classic rock (I fell in love with the Beatles at age 14), modern alternative rock (Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Beck, Radiohead, etc.) and female singer-songwriters. I was absolutely obsessed with Tori Amos from about age 17 through age 23.
What's your current favorite album/artist and why?
Joni Mitchell has been my favorite artist since I was 16 years old. No other artist compares with her, for me. I am also more familiar with her catalog than I am with nearly any other artist, as I have done several song-by-song deep dives of her entire discography.
Singer-songwriter music is my favorite genre, as I am drawn to deeply personal and intimate work in which the artist bleeds out their soul on the page. Joni is the peak of said genre. I find that her work cares for me because it is so real. Her two great subjects were her eternal search for love and her endless need for independence (and the constant push and pull between those two extremes) and her work is romantic in a real way–all the hard, painful, ecstatic complications of love in a real life. I’m a fan of her entire catalog but my favorite albums are Court and Spark, For the Roses, Hejira, Blue and Night Ride Home.
My favorite non-Joni album is the incredibly tender Amplified Heart by Everything But the Girl–everyday sensitivity and brilliantly understated.
What's an album that you feel holds up to the years and will stand the test of time?
I think the chief quality that makes any album endure and continue to find new listeners is, quite simply, songwriting. Novelty is great, but a lot of strange and daring records make a big splash when they first appear and then sort of fade away with time. Those albums that we have already seen prove themselves to be classics are the ones that just have rock solid, undeniable songcraft. Strong melodies, memorable lyrics, and quality arrangements that elevate the material rather than obscure it. That’s what we see in everything from Pet Sounds to Rumours.
To pick an album from within the last ten years that I think will endure in that same way, and which has those same qualities, I’d pick Desire, I Want to Turn Into You by Caroline Polachek and/or After Laughter by Paramore.
Both borrow sounds from the past, but freshen them with new ideas and memorable and moving sincerity in the lyrics. And both are just chock full of timeless, accessible and immensely likeable melodies. That’s another reason albums become classics. Quite simply, people like them!
What's a "guilty pleasure" artist you'll defend to anyone who'll listen?
I’m not sure I really believe in the idea of a guilty pleasure. I’m almost 40 and when you reach your middle age, you really stop caring what other people think about you and your taste in art. I love all kinds of things unapologetically. But I know what you’re getting at. I have a big spot in my heart for boy bands. I really like them and have them in my collection proudly right along with my Stones and Bright Eyes and Kate Bush albums. Boy bands have a lot of personality and a lot of melody, which are two things I always respond to. I’ll always like the TRL-era boy bands of my own preteen years (if you’re wondering–I far prefer Backstreet Boys to NSYNC–they all sang and they had better ballads), but my two favorite boy bands are BTS and One Direction.
One Direction in particular evolved into just a really strong pop/rock band by their third album and a couple of the members (Louis and Harry in particular) turned out to be quite strong songwriters. If you want to actually give a boy band album a try with an open mind, I recommend One Direction’s album FOUR from 2014. It’s strong material from beginning to end.
How do you discover new (or old) music these days?
I’m definitely slowing down in terms of musical discovery these days, but that does happen with age. I’m thankful for the time in which I came of age because it was during the “Wild West” years of the Internet. I got my musical education in all kinds of places, including random forums and music chat servers, library books, documentaries on VH1 and MTV (and Netflix, back when you had to get the disc in the mail!), YouTube and many other places. I loved digging into the history of popular music and hearing complete discographies. I’m sad that a lot of those things are gone now, or simply not the way they used to be.
For younger people, I’d advise to just stay curious. If you hear a song you really love, don’t just add it to your playlist. Listen to the whole album it came from. Listen to the albums before and after that one in the artist’s discography. Look at the “Listeners also liked” section on Spotify. You don’t have to let the algorithm guide you.
One of my favorite ways to discover artists these days are author and fan-curated playlists for books I really love. The author Heather Fawcett created playlists1 for her Emily Wilde series which were right in line with my tastes, and introduced me to some new things as well including German pagan folk band Faun.
What's an album or artist everyone seems to love that you just couldn't get into?
One of the artists it feels like I ‘should’ like based on my tastes that I simply don’t like is Elvis Costello. I have tried so many times. I have watched videos from huge fans who rhapsodize about his genius. I will get all excited and think, “This is it. I’m finally going to get into him!” Then I put on his records and I just don’t care for them at all. He’s a very clever lyricist, but his arrangements and voice do nothing for me.
If you could only listen to one genre for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?
Singer-songwriters, as I have said. It’s a far more varied genre than it gets credit for as well. I’m what you call a ‘lyrics person’ and I always care about the words in the music I listen to. In revealing so much of themselves, singer-songwriters often help me become closer to myself. It’s the way that the more specific something is, the more universally touching it becomes. People don’t cry over generalities.
How do you listen to music i.e. via streaming, vinyl, CDs? What audio gear do you use?
I listen to Spotify almost 100% of the time these days. I work, I’ve got a kid and it is convenient, familiar and great for album listening as well as playlists. I have both a CD and vinyl collection, though I only add to them both selectively at this point in my life. Most of what I have are full collections of artists that really matter to me.
Where can we find you and do you have anything you would like to share?
My Rate Your Music profile, BrightEye14. I’ve got over 3,000 ratings, over 900 reviews and a ton of full artist discography rankings and other lists (including my 100 favorite artists and 50 favorite albums).
I’d also just share that, if you’re young especially, it can be so important to exist in music communities that are welcoming to you. I’ve been in my share of toxic spaces. I’m a woman and I have often been the only woman (or one of very few) in music spaces online. I’ve been talked down to for my age and my gender many times. I’ve received super gross comments, and comments that dismiss my intelligence and knowledge. I think part of the reason Tori Amos meant so much to me in my late teens was because in her fandom, I finally found a space that was built for, by and around female and LGBTQIA+ individuals. If you’re somewhere online that feels unsafe or makes you feel bad about yourself–please remember that you can simply remove yourself from that space! Stay true to who you are because I promise you that there are other people ‘like you’ out there and you can often find them supporting the artists that matter the most to you!
Shannon is one of the few women I found on RYM through her Wilco list! Her perspective as someone who has navigated music spaces online for as long as she did is something I think a lot of readers can find inspiring!
Official Playlists for the Emily Wilde Series: Book 1 Playlist, Book 2 Playlist, Book 3 Playlist↩