Country Music Taught Me That Stockholm Syndrome Is Real

My musical tastes went down quite a path as I grew up. My first tape (yeah, I had tapes) was MC Hammer. After that, Weird Al reigned supreme. Then I became a big Def Leppard fan, and then settled in like many angsty teenagers with Metallica and various other metal groups. 

But I'm from Iowa. And in Iowa, one type of music reigns supreme. That music is country music. Since I was inundated with country music every time I did any sort of social activity, I rebelled against and hated it. But eventually it beat me down. It grew on me, some would say like a rash, but it grew on me nonetheless. I actually began to like the stuff, like, it became my go-to music choice. I even defended it to people who didn't like it. "It's a lot better than you think...They sing about fighting...It's not all about dogs and guns."

This lasted for a decade. A full decade of listening to country music. Man, if only I could get those years back. 

But after a decade, I got married, and more importantly, I moved to Florida. Now Florida is just as much of a white trash haven as Iowa, but luckily, I didn't have friends. And not having friends meant that I could always choose what I wanted to listen to. As time went on, that became less and less country music. It went that way because country music is garbage, and my brain now understood that.

It was very freeing. I started to listen to good music like The Sheepdogs, The Struts, The Record Company, and Run the Jewels. You know, legitimately good music. I didn't even know how evil my country music captors were until becoming free for a while and realizing how good music (and life) could truly be.

Life is short. Far too short to listen to country music. I know it's scary to find new music out there, but trust me, there is music that you will truly enjoy listening to. I did it, and you can do it too. I promise.