They say to never judge a book by its cover in hopes that people become more open to books despite first impressions. Often times this same saying is applied to humans, to incite friendliness amongst strangers and to judge others based on character, rather than looks.
Just as everyone’s personality differs, so does their taste in music.
Some people get competitive when discussing which type of music, they consider best, bashing the genres that they don’t listen to, and sometimes going as far as generalizing and stereotyping the fans of those genres, or in a sense, judging a book by its cover.
Everyone has different opinions about music, just as everyone comes from different backgrounds in life.
However, we shouldn’t let these differences separate us, instead we can celebrate them and challenge ourselves to become more open to other things we previously may have not given a chance.
The student body at Las Positas College is very diverse, so one can assume that the types of music they listen to is also diverse.
Howard Wu, a self-proclaimed 52-year-old with the heart of a 25-year-old and student at LPC, is new to America and loves music. Coming from China one year ago, his English is fairly broken and understandably, he doesn’t understand the entirety of the language yet.
However, with patience, a mutual desire to continue the conversation and a little help from Google Translate, Wu was able to share his music interests.
Ever since his early 20’s, he had a fascination with American music, finding it creative and inspiring. Mr. Wu has two cell phones, one purchased in China and one in America.
On his American phone, he uses Apple Music to enjoy songs such as “Take Me Home, Country Roads” by John Denver, and also likes listening to U2.
On his Chinese phone, he enjoys songs like “This Song” by 2AM, on apps like KuGou and NetEase, a Chinese equivalent to Spotify.
Regardless of language barriers, Wu is able to enjoy many different types of music, just like many others worldwide.
Even if one can’t understand the lyrics to a song, the song still evokes a feeling to the listener and how the music itself sounds, can be appreciated.
This makes music universal and it can be a driving force to unite us all, despite any differing lifestyles and opinions we may have.
Wu was excited when told there’d be a student made playlist for the school so that others can discover new music, “Yes! Different is good, people need change, and need to find new music. It’s necessary to understand each other’s differences.” Wu is living proof that we shouldn’t judge books by their cover.
The Sounds of LPC collaborative playlist
Through the “Collaborative Playlist” feature on Spotify, you can check out and edit the “Sounds of LPC” playlist. This playlist challenges you to broaden your horizons and listen to a variety of songs that your peers enjoy and listen to themselves.
Artists include the likes of Elton John, Harry Styles, Post Malone, Mac Miller, and the Rolling Stones, as well as many others.
Not everyone may enjoy or recognize every song on this playlist, but if you feel like adding a song to represent your own personal taste in music, you can.
If you have Spotify Premium, you are able to edit the playlist from your mobile phone and from a computer, but if you have the free version of Spotify, your are limited to the computer version of the app.
If you do in fact decide to edit the playlist, we ask you politely to not ‘add songs anyways’ if prompted that the song is already in the playlist, in order to avoid hearing the same song more than once in a shuffle. We also ask that you don’t remove
any songs from the playlist because you don’t like it or just because you can. This is meant to be a fun learning experience for all.
Taylour Sparkman is a staff writer for The Express. Follow him @T_Sparkman_330.
