Radio Silence (on music)

My brother is a pop music geek. He's in an online forum on pop, where they discuss and analyze songs, hit charts, albums, and such. If not for him, I wouldn't know about the latest K-pop groups, UK acts, and music videos. I don't keep up with music much, and there's no genre I prefer. When I like a song, I'd look for the artist and download whole albums I could listen to for a long time.

I've been listening to Gorillaz, The Birthday Massacre, A Perfect Circle, and Sugababes for years. I like lyrics more than sound. A band I like lately is She Wants Revenge, and these are their kind of lines that made me like their songs:
I know we all have regrets, but that's the price of one more lesson learned ("I don't wanna fall in love")
Her words were in italics as it would fall from her lips ("Sister")
We got nowhere to go we got nothing to prove, instead of dancing alone I should be dancing with you ("Out of control")

Maybe I'm musically illiterate. I don't play any instrument and I never understood music concepts like time signatures, beats, or notes, as taught in MAPEH from elementary. Math, I comprehended more.
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My friends back in high school used to list songs we like and pay an internet cafe to burn a CD for us. We didn't know enough about computers or downloading then to do it ourselves. I now feel that internet cafe was scamming us, as it costs 50 pesos. Now I could do that for less than 10 with a cheap blank CD.

My friends' older sisters got mix CDs from guys courting them, complete with custom printed covers and lyric sheets, love letters through songs and music.

Before music could be downloaded via clicks, I made mix tapes with a blank casette tape. In a tape with music on it already, there are two tiny plastic squares at the bottom that prevents it from being recorded on. Snip them off with a screwdriver, and now you can.

For the songs, it has to be chosen to a theme. I had to let that song play from a CD, tape, or wait for it to play on FM radio, then record. Trying to catch the song by the last way needs patience. I had to always tune to another station, only to feel regret when that song was ending, then to hear that it already started on the previous station and its too late. I had to rewind and wait again, and make sure I don't record over a song already on tape. It takes at least a week to complete one.

It wasn't to be given to anybody. I had to draw my own covers in crayon and write the list of songs on Side A and B, as printers and Photoshop were unheard of then. I made my own titles to the tape.

I can't recall any of those songs I recorded  from Grade 2 to 5, but I guess they were pop, rock, and OPM songs of that time. The tapes were all flooded away along with other things last 2008. Those songs seemed different and more felt when I first listened to a whole tape without pressing any button (stop|pause|rewind|forward|backward|record).

I miss that, but I prefer the easier way now.