Jaime David Music Posts

Genres Are Messier Than We Think

2026-10-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

Music genres aren't always neat little boxes.

Artists blend styles.

Songs borrow from different traditions.

New sounds emerge from old ones.

Sometimes trying to categorize a song is harder than simply listening to it.

What Makes A Song Feel Nostalgic?

2026-10-17T16:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a song can transport you somewhere instantly.

A particular year.

A childhood memory.

A person you haven't thought about in years.

Music has a strange ability to connect itself to moments in our lives.

And sometimes one song is all it takes to bring one back.

You Don't Have To Know Music Theory To Love Music

2026-10-16T16:22:00.000-07:00

You don't need to know what a chord progression is.

You don't need to read sheet music.

You don't need to understand every technical detail.

You can simply hear something and think:

"Wow. I like this."

That's enough.

Music Can Change The Mood Of A Scene

2026-10-15T16:21:00.000-07:00

Imagine a horror movie without its music.

Or an emotional scene without the soundtrack.

Music can completely change how we experience what we're watching.

Sometimes the same scene can feel funny, terrifying, hopeful, or heartbreaking depending on what's playing underneath it.

A Song Can Mean Something Completely Different To Someone Else

2026-10-14T16:21:00.000-07:00

You can write a song about one specific experience and someone else can hear an entirely different story in it.

That's one of the beautiful things about music.

Once a song reaches someone else, their own experiences become part of how they hear it.

Why Do Certain Songs Get Stuck In Our Heads?

2026-10-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

You hear a song once.

Then suddenly it's playing in your head all day.

Catchy melodies, repetition, rhythm, and other musical patterns can all contribute to songs becoming stuck in our minds.

Sometimes your brain just refuses to change the station.

Music Doesn't Have To Be Perfect

2026-10-12T16:20:00.000-07:00

Sometimes a song's imperfections are what make it feel human.

A cracked note.

A strange vocal take.

A little background noise.

Music doesn't always need to be flawless to connect with someone.

Eminem, What the Fuck Are You Doing?

2026-10-03T08:02:37.458-07:00

Okay, Eminem. What the fuck are we doing here?

So apparently Eminem is going to be featured on Kid Rock’s upcoming Christian album, Halfway 2 Jesus. The song is called “7 Sins,” and yes, this is actually happening. This isn't some fake track listing or AI-generated bullshit. Eminem's camp has confirmed that the collaboration is real.

And look, Eminem and Kid Rock have a history. Eminem appeared on Kid Rock's “Fuck Off” way back in 1998, and Kid Rock later appeared in the music video for Eminem's “Berzerk.” So this isn't exactly two complete strangers suddenly deciding to work together.

But here's the fucking problem.

Kid Rock is openly MAGA. He has been one of Donald Trump's most visible celebrity supporters. And Eminem has spent years being publicly hostile toward Trump.

Remember 2017?

At the BET Hip-Hop Awards, Eminem delivered “The Storm,” an entire freestyle aimed at Donald Trump. And he didn't just criticize Trump. He specifically addressed his own fans who supported Trump.

He basically drew a line in the sand.

If you were a Trump supporter, Eminem told you to fuck off.

That wasn't some vague “I disagree with Trump” statement. He explicitly told his fans that they had to choose between supporting him and supporting Trump.

And now, almost a decade later, he's appearing on an album by one of Trump's biggest celebrity supporters.

Come the fuck on.

Now, before somebody jumps down my throat, no, I am not saying Eminem is suddenly MAGA. I'm not saying he supports Trump now. I'm not saying working with Kid Rock automatically means Eminem agrees with everything Kid Rock believes.

Kid Rock himself has basically acknowledged that they don't agree politically. He says they're still friends despite their political differences and that he hopes the collaboration demonstrates that people can remain friends even when they disagree politically.

And that's where I have a problem with Eminem's old stance.

Because Eminem didn't merely say, “I disagree with Trump, but my fans can believe whatever they want.”

He drew a fucking line.

He told Trump-supporting fans to fuck off.

So if you're going to make that kind of statement publicly, and then years later willingly contribute to an album by one of Trump's most outspoken supporters, people are absolutely justified in looking at that and saying, “Wait a fucking minute.”

Because what exactly was that line supposed to mean?

Was it only about Donald Trump personally? Was it about Trump's policies? Was it about what supporting Trump represented to Eminem at the time? Did his position change? Does he now believe political differences shouldn't affect personal or professional relationships?

If so, fucking say that.

Because otherwise, it looks like Eminem is asking people to take a principle seriously when it's convenient and then making an exception when it's somebody he has known for decades.

And honestly, that's the part that bothers me more than the collaboration itself.

Artists can collaborate with whoever the hell they want. Eminem is a grown-ass man. Kid Rock is a grown-ass man. They can make whatever music they want together.

But when you've previously told your own fans to fuck off for supporting a particular political figure, you don't get to be surprised when people notice that you're now collaborating with one of that political figure's biggest celebrity supporters.

That's the consequence of drawing a line that fucking clearly.

And maybe there's something about this collaboration that I don't know. Maybe Eminem's verse addresses this exact contradiction. Maybe there's context that will become clearer once the album comes out. Maybe the two of them genuinely have a friendship that exists completely separately from politics.

Fine.

I'll listen to the song before pretending I know exactly what Eminem is saying.

But right now?

Eminem, you spent years telling us where you stood.

So forgive me if I'm looking at this collaboration and going:

What the fuck happened to that line in the sand?

Music can bring people together despite political differences. I actually believe that.

But if you're going to preach that message now, then you also have to reckon with what you said back then.

Because otherwise, yeah, Eminem is going to look pretty fucking full of shit.

The Heritage I Don't Hear in My Music (Or Talk About Enough)

2026-09-24T15:21:32.369-07:00

It's Hispanic Heritage Month.

And, well, fuck it.

I'm Hispanic. More specifically, I'm Salvadoran.

I've spent years writing about music, books, science, and whatever else is on my mind, and I almost never talk about this part of myself.

Here's the thing that makes it stranger: for a lot of people, music is where heritage lives loudest. It's the songs playing in the kitchen and the sounds that mean home before you can explain why. That isn't really how it went for me.

The Music I Grew Up On

The music I grew up on was rock, mostly. Later came metal, then hip hop and reggae. Barely any of it was Spanish music.

So my relationship to my heritage and my relationship to music have mostly run on separate tracks. I'm Salvadoran, and the soundtrack of my life has been guitars, distortion, and beats that came from other places. Both things are true, and I'm still figuring out what to make of that.

Being Mixed, Being Hard to Categorize

My heritage is mixed. I'm Salvadoran, but I also have Polish, Austrian, German, and French ancestry. For this post I want to focus on the Salvadoran side, the part I've rarely centered in my writing or my identity.

Music lovers know the feeling of an artist or song that won't stay in one genre. Record stores never know where to file it. It's a little of this and a little of that, and it refuses the box.

That's a pretty good description of my experience with race and ethnicity. Depending on who's looking, I can benefit from some degree of white-passing privilege. I've become more conscious of that over the years. Privilege doesn't mean you've never experienced discrimination. Sometimes you exist in a weird middle ground, benefiting from one part of how you're perceived while being vulnerable to another.

I can be perceived as white by some people.

I can be perceived differently by others because of my heritage.

Both things can be true.

I want to be clear that I haven't experienced a tremendous amount of racism for being Hispanic. That's my experience. It doesn't mean racism doesn't exist, or that other Hispanic people haven't dealt with far worse.

When It Becomes Real

The first time I clearly experienced something aimed at my heritage was around 2020 or 2021. A friend I'd had a falling out with contacted me after I'd made it clear I didn't want to hear from him, and he called me names related to my Hispanic background.

Then, earlier in 2026, I was on a train with my mom when a man began saying things to both of us, some of it aimed at my heritage. It was awful. I don't think prejudice stops being prejudice depending on who it comes from.

I don't want this to become a story about either of those people. It's about what those moments did to my sense of myself.

It's one thing to know intellectually that racism and ethnic prejudice exist. It's another thing entirely to have it pointed at you.

There Is No Single Experience

Because I've been lucky, I don't want to pretend my experience represents anyone else's. There isn't one universal Hispanic experience, one Salvadoran experience, or one experience of being mixed. People can share a piece of an identity and have completely different lives, shaped by what you look like, what your name sounds like, where you grew up, and what assumptions people make when they meet you.

It's like two people who love the same genre and hear completely different things in it. Same music, different lives underneath.

Jaime David

Which brings me to my name.

Jaime David is my pen name, and in hindsight it's oddly fitting. "Jaime" can be ambiguous depending on pronunciation. I say it "Jay-me," like the people who know me do. "David" probably conjures a pretty specific image for a lot of people.

I didn't choose it to make a statement about identity. It came from my middle name and my confirmation name. That's all I'll say about that.

Music has a long tradition of chosen names. Artists take stage names to reinvent themselves, to protect their privacy, to fit a genre, or just because the name feels right. Mine wasn't a costume, but it turned out to be a name that can be read more than one way. That's me. I'm mixed, I'm complicated, and I don't always fit the box someone expects.

Learning, Not Competing

The biggest change over the past several years is that I've become more socially aware. I've learned more about racism, prejudice, and privilege, and how different people's experiences can be even when they share a broad identity.

I've also learned I don't have to pretend I know everything. I can listen. I can recognize where I have privilege and where I don't. I can accept that someone else's experience may be completely different from mine, without turning it into a contest over who has suffered more.

If I have some degree of passing privilege, I think I have a responsibility to be conscious of it. Maybe it also gives me the chance to talk about things that others don't have the same freedom or safety to talk about. That doesn't make me a spokesperson. I'm one Salvadoran-American person with a complicated mix of ancestry, experiences, privileges, and contradictions.

Why I'm Writing This Here

I talk about music, writing, books, science, mental health, and society. I talk about whatever the hell is on my mind that day. Somehow I've rarely talked about this.

I don't need to make my whole creative identity about being Hispanic. But heritage can sit quietly in the background until you stop and ask what it means, the way a song you've heard a thousand times can suddenly sound different once you know what it's about.

For me, being Salvadoran is one part of a bigger identity. I'm also Polish, Austrian, German, and French. I'm mixed and ambiguous, and I'm still learning.

So, yeah. Happy Hispanic Heritage Month.

If you have a favorite Salvadoran artist, or a song that connects you to your own heritage, tell me about it. I'd like to hear it.

From one Salvadoran writer who probably should have talked about this sooner.

I guess I'm talking about it now.

I'm just going to be real with y'all about musicians, celebrities, and this whole “pro-Israel vs. pro-Palestine” thing.

2026-09-16T02:32:35.128-07:00

I've been seeing so many people online keeping track of which celebrities are pro-Palestine and which celebrities are pro-Israel.

And as someone who makes music myself, I'm looking at all of this from the perspective of an artist.

And honestly?

I don't fucking care.

I don't care which celebrity is supposedly on which side.

Because I'm going to be brutally honest:

I don't think most of them truly are.

Not wholeheartedly.

Not in the way people seem to think they are.

Why?

Because they're performers.

They're entertainers.

Their careers are built around audiences, attention, trends, popularity, and staying culturally relevant.

And yes, I'm sure there are celebrities who genuinely believe what they're saying. I'm not going to claim that every single person is secretly lying.

But when you suddenly see huge numbers of famous people jumping into the same political conversation at roughly the same time, I'm going to question it.

Why now?

That's my question.

Why now?

Why are some of these enormous artists suddenly talking about Palestine and Israel when they barely, if ever, talked about either before?

Where the fuck were y'all?

Where were these statements years ago?

Where was the concern before social media made certain positions incredibly visible?

And yes, I understand that people online helped bring these issues into the mainstream conversation.

I understand that artists can become more aware of something over time.

People can learn.

People can change their minds.

People can become politically engaged later in life.

Of course they can.

But I'm still allowed to look at the sudden wave of celebrity activism and think:

This feels fucking disingenuous.

Because let's be honest about what the entertainment industry does.

It follows waves.

It follows trends.

It follows what's getting attention.

And right now, you've got a very visible pro-Palestine vs. pro-Israel cultural divide.

So some artists are going to ride the pro-Palestinian wave.

Others are going to ride the pro-Israel wave.

And either way, they're getting attention.

They're getting engagement.

They're getting headlines.

They're getting people talking about them.

And that's where I start wondering whether we're actually looking at political conviction—or whether we're looking at performers performing.

Because that's literally what they do.

They perform.

That's their job.

And I'm not saying that as an insult.

I'm a musician too.

I fucking love music.

I love artists.

I love performers.

But that's precisely why I'm skeptical when we suddenly start treating musicians like they're political authorities.

They're artists.

They're not diplomats.

They're not historians.

They're not government officials.

They're not representatives of millions of people.

They're musicians who happen to have enormous platforms.

And I think we've started putting way too much stock into what celebrities believe.

“Oh, this musician supports Palestine.”

“Oh, this musician supports Israel.”

“Oh, this actor posted this.”

“Oh, this singer didn't post that.”

Who gives a fuck?

Seriously.

Why are we treating celebrity political opinions like they're the fucking scoreboard?

And here's another thing I've noticed.

We've seen this cycle before.

Look at Ukraine.

For a while, Ukraine was everywhere.

Musicians talked about it.

Actors talked about it.

Celebrities posted about it.

Everybody had a statement.

Everybody had an opinion.

And then, eventually, the conversation became quieter.

Not because the people disappeared.

Not because the situation magically became irrelevant.

But because the news cycle moved on.

The same thing has happened with Palestine and Gaza repeatedly.

People talk about it intensely.

Celebrities speak out.

Social media explodes.

Everyone has their position.

And then eventually...

It fades into the background.

And I'm telling you right now: eventually, the same thing is going to happen again.

Not because the people involved don't matter.

They fucking do.

But because that's how attention works.

There's always another crisis.

Another war.

Another election.

Another scandal.

Another celebrity controversy.

Another fucking thing for everyone to argue about.

And eventually, people get tired.

They move on.

And the celebrity posts stop.

Until the next major escalation happens.

Then the cycle starts all over again.

And honestly, that's one of the reasons I'm skeptical of celebrity activism in the first place.

Because attention isn't the same thing as change.

A musician can write a song.

A singer can hold up a sign.

An actor can post an Instagram Story.

A rapper can say “Free Palestine” from a stage.

Another artist can say something supporting Israel.

And then everybody online argues about which celebrity is morally correct.

But what actually changed?

That's the part I'm interested in.

Because I'm not saying I don't care about the people involved.

I do.

I want Palestinians to be safe.

I want Israelis to be safe.

I want people to have peace.

I want people to have dignity.

I want people to have a future.

I'm not fucking heartless.

I'm just being realistic about the entertainment industry.

And as a musician myself, I think we should stop treating musicians like they're the fucking messiahs of every political cause.

They're artists.

Let them make their music.

If they genuinely believe in something, they're free to speak about it.

But I'm also free to question their motivations.

I'm free to wonder why they suddenly care.

I'm free to wonder why they didn't say anything before.

And I'm free to look at the entire celebrity political machine and say:

“This feels like a fucking bandwagon.”

Maybe I'm wrong about some of them.

Maybe some of them genuinely mean every word.

Fine.

But I'm not going to blindly assume that because a famous musician posts a political statement, that statement suddenly carries more weight.

Because at the end of the day, they're performers.

And performers know how to work a fucking crowd.

So when I see everyone obsessing over which celebrities are pro-Israel and which are pro-Palestine, my response is simple:

Stop treating the celebrity roster like it's going to determine the outcome.

It won't.

The artists aren't going to solve this.

Their songs aren't going to solve it.

Their Instagram posts aren't going to solve it.

Their celebrity beefs aren't going to solve it.

And eventually, the internet is going to move on to something else.

Because that's what the internet does.

I'm not saying I don't care about the people.

I absolutely fucking do.

I'm just being real with y'all about the difference between caring about people and believing every celebrity who suddenly tells you they care.

Those are two very different things.

Did Music Get Tamer After 9/11?

2026-09-13T05:12:53.959-07:00

I've been thinking about something strange when it comes to music.

Did music get... tamer after 9/11?

Now, before anyone misunderstands me, I'm not saying music became clean after September 11, 2001.

Obviously fucking not.

There has been plenty of explicit music since 9/11.

Plenty of profanity.

Plenty of sex.

Plenty of drugs.

Plenty of violence.

Plenty of controversial lyrics.

Plenty of artists trying to piss people off.

There have been songs since 9/11 that are absolutely fucking insane.

So I'm not arguing that music suddenly became wholesome.

What I'm talking about is something harder to quantify.

A feeling.

Compared with a lot of music from previous decades, particularly the 1980s and 1990s, modern mainstream music can sometimes feel strangely tame.

Even when it's supposedly edgy.

Even when it's explicit.

Even when it's controversial.

Even when an artist is trying to shock people.

There often seems to be an invisible ceiling.

Artists can get close to it.

But they don't quite break through it.

And I find that fascinating.

Because if you look at music from before 9/11, especially certain corners of rock, punk, metal, hip-hop, industrial, alternative music, and even mainstream pop, there was sometimes an incredible willingness to be fucking weird.

Not just explicit.

Weird.

Angry.

Disturbing.

Provocative.

Uncomfortable.

Sometimes offensive.

Sometimes completely ridiculous.

Sometimes brilliant.

Sometimes terrible.

But there was often this attitude of:

"Fuck it. Let's make the song."

And I miss that.

There was a certain kind of musical recklessness that feels less common in mainstream music today.

Again, I'm not saying it disappeared.

It didn't.

There are still artists making incredibly weird music.

There are still musicians writing deeply disturbing lyrics.

There are still artists making political music.

There are still people experimenting with genre.

There are still musicians saying things that make people uncomfortable.

But sometimes it feels like the weirdness has become more controlled.

More marketable.

More calculated.

More aware of the audience.

More aware of social media.

More aware of public relations.

More aware of what might get someone "canceled."

And that changes things.

Because music isn't created in a vacuum.

The world changed after 9/11.

And music existed within that world.

Suddenly, certain words and images carried different weight.

War became a much more immediate subject.

Terrorism became a much more immediate subject.

Death and destruction became harder to treat as abstract concepts.

Artists responded to that.

Some became more political.

Some became more patriotic.

Some became more anti-war.

Some became more cynical.

Some simply ignored it.

But the cultural atmosphere had changed.

And then the music industry itself changed dramatically.

The internet exploded.

Napster and file sharing disrupted the industry.

iTunes changed how people bought music.

YouTube changed how people discovered music.

Streaming eventually changed how people consumed music.

Social media transformed how artists interacted with audiences.

And suddenly musicians weren't just musicians.

They were brands.

They were content creators.

They were social media personalities.

They were marketing campaigns.

They were expected to maintain an online presence.

And that can create a different kind of pressure.

Because when you're an artist today, anything you say can potentially become a headline.

A lyric can be screenshotted.

A concert moment can be recorded.

An old interview can resurface.

A joke can go viral.

Something you said ten years ago can suddenly be judged according to today's cultural standards.

And artists know that.

So naturally, some of them become more cautious.

Not necessarily because they're afraid to be artists.

But because there are more consequences to being publicly reckless.

And then there's the economics of the music industry.

Mainstream music is expensive.

Labels want successful singles.

Streaming platforms reward attention.

Algorithms reward certain kinds of engagement.

Artists are competing for playlists.

They're competing for TikTok clips.

They're competing for viral moments.

They're competing for the attention of people who have millions of other songs available at their fingertips.

So there's an incentive to make music that is immediately accessible.

Catchy.

Marketable.

Shareable.

And recognizable.

That doesn't necessarily mean bad music.

Far from it.

There is plenty of incredible modern music.

But it can sometimes feel like the music is being designed around the ecosystem in which it will exist.

And that's where the "tame" feeling comes from for me.

Something can have explicit lyrics while still feeling incredibly safe.

A rapper can say the most outrageous thing imaginable, but if the song itself follows every familiar convention, it doesn't necessarily feel transgressive.

A rock song can have screaming and distorted guitars while still sounding like something that was engineered to fit perfectly into a playlist.

A pop star can cultivate an edgy image while still operating within a very carefully controlled brand.

You can have rebellion that has been professionally packaged.

And that's a strange thing.

Because rebellion is supposed to be unpredictable.

It's supposed to be messy.

It's supposed to surprise people.

It's supposed to make someone say:

"What the fuck is this?"

But sometimes modern music feels like it has already anticipated that reaction.

The controversy is part of the marketing.

The shock is part of the brand.

The "edginess" is part of the aesthetic.

And once rebellion becomes an aesthetic, it can start feeling less rebellious.

That's not unique to music, of course.

It's happening throughout entertainment.

But music has always been one of the places where people could express things they couldn't say elsewhere.

Music could be angry.

Music could be sexual.

Music could be political.

Music could be nihilistic.

Music could be hopeful.

Music could be fucked up.

Music could be ridiculous.

Music could be whatever the artist wanted it to be.

And some of the music from previous decades really embraced that freedom.

Think about how strange some of the genres and subgenres that emerged during the twentieth century were.

Punk.

Industrial.

Noise.

Alternative rock.

Hardcore.

Death metal.

Black metal.

Experimental hip-hop.

Underground rap.

Weird electronic music.

Artists were constantly finding new ways to make sounds that weren't supposed to sound good.

And sometimes those movements eventually became commercially successful.

That's one of the beautiful contradictions of music.

Something can start as underground rebellion and eventually become mainstream.

But even then, the original spirit can remain.

And I sometimes wonder whether the mainstream music industry today has become too good at absorbing rebellion.

Something strange happens.

An underground sound becomes popular.

A major label notices.

The sound gets polished.

The aesthetic gets packaged.

The artists become influencers.

The rebellion becomes merchandise.

And eventually, what once felt dangerous becomes another genre category on a streaming service.

Again, I'm not saying this is inherently bad.

It's just interesting.

And perhaps 9/11 is only one part of this story.

Maybe the bigger shift was technology.

Maybe it was globalization.

Maybe it was the collapse of the old music business.

Maybe it was social media.

Maybe it was streaming.

Maybe it was all of those things happening simultaneously.

I don't think there's one simple explanation.

But I do think the atmosphere changed.

And sometimes I listen to older music and think:

"Jesus Christ, they actually fucking said that."

Not necessarily because the lyrics are more explicit.

Sometimes they're not.

It's because the artist seems completely unconcerned with whether everyone will like them.

That's the part I miss.

The willingness to be disliked.

The willingness to make something ugly.

The willingness to make something uncomfortable.

The willingness to make something that doesn't fit neatly into a playlist.

The willingness to make something that might alienate half the audience.

Because sometimes the best art comes from that place.

And that doesn't mean every artist needs to become an asshole.

It doesn't mean musicians should deliberately offend people.

It doesn't mean shock value automatically equals artistic value.

It doesn't.

Being offensive isn't inherently creative.

Being explicit isn't inherently rebellious.

Being controversial isn't inherently meaningful.

But taking genuine creative risks?

That matters.

And I think music benefits from musicians who aren't afraid to take those risks.

That's part of why I'm interested in making music myself.

I'm not interested in trying to recreate the past.

I'm not trying to pretend that music was automatically better before 9/11.

There was plenty of garbage back then too.

There were plenty of formulaic songs.

There were plenty of corporate pop stars.

There were plenty of manufactured acts.

There was plenty of boring music.

Nostalgia can distort our memories.

But I do think there was something special about the willingness of certain musicians to simply experiment.

And that's something I want to see more of.

Give me the weird song.

Give me the bizarre genre combination.

Give me the ridiculous concept album.

Give me the song that sounds like it shouldn't work.

Give me the artist who doesn't care whether the song fits neatly into a playlist.

Give me something that makes me stop and say:

"What the fuck did I just hear?"

That's what music is capable of.

And maybe that's the bigger issue.

Music doesn't have to be safe.

It doesn't have to be universally accessible.

It doesn't have to be perfectly polished.

It doesn't have to be algorithmically optimized.

Sometimes it just needs to fucking exist.

A weird idea.

A strange sound.

A bizarre lyric.

A saxophone playing something completely unexpected.

A song that combines genres that probably shouldn't work together.

A musician experimenting simply because they want to see what happens.

That's where some of the most interesting music comes from.

And maybe the weirdness isn't gone.

Maybe it's just harder to find.

Maybe it's living in independent artists.

Bandcamp.

SoundCloud.

YouTube.

Small labels.

Bedroom producers.

Experimental musicians.

People making music with whatever tools they happen to have.

Maybe the mainstream simply isn't where you go anymore when you want to find the truly strange shit.

And honestly, that's okay.

Because music has always found a way to escape the boundaries placed around it.

Someone will always come along and make something weird.

Someone will always make something uncomfortable.

Someone will always make something that doesn't fit.

Someone will always say:

"Fuck it. I'm going to make this."

And I hope that never changes.

Because if there's one thing I don't want music to lose, it's that sense of danger.

Not danger in the literal sense.

Creative danger.

The feeling that an artist might actually surprise you.

The feeling that something might go completely off the rails.

The feeling that you're hearing something that wasn't designed by a committee.

Something that wasn't engineered for an algorithm.

Something that wasn't created solely because the market research said it would work.

Something human.

Something weird.

Something imperfect.

Something alive.

So did music get tamer after 9/11?

Maybe.

Maybe that's partly nostalgia.

Maybe it's the changing music industry.

Maybe it's the internet.

Maybe it's streaming.

Maybe it's social media.

Maybe it's the increased commercialization of everything.

Maybe it's simply that I'm looking at different kinds of music now than I did when I was younger.

But I do think there was a cultural shift.

And whatever caused it, I hope we never completely lose the willingness to make music that feels dangerous, strange, unpredictable, and fucking weird.

Because sometimes the best song isn't the safest song.

Sometimes it's the one that makes you stop what you're doing and say:

"What the fuck was that?"

And then you listen to it again.

I Had to DIY Fit a New Saxophone Neck

2026-09-12T09:45:50.683-07:00

Sometimes, playing music means doing more than just playing the instrument.

Sometimes, you have to become a little bit of a mechanic.

Recently, I ordered a new neck for my saxophone. I was excited to try it out, but when I went to put it onto the saxophone, I immediately ran into a problem.

The connector portion of the neck wasn't fitting.

It was simply too tight.

At first, I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to do about it. I didn't want to force the neck into the saxophone, because that seemed like a pretty good way to potentially damage something. So I started looking into how other saxophone players deal with this kind of problem.

That's when I came across a BetterSax video explaining how to DIY-fix a neck that doesn't quite fit.

The solution was surprisingly simple.

Sandpaper.

I got some sandpaper and carefully worked around the tenon—the connector portion of the neck that goes into the saxophone's body. Rather than aggressively sanding it down, I slowly twisted the sandpaper around the tenon, taking off only a very small amount at a time.

The goal wasn't to reshape the entire thing. I just needed to remove enough material so that the neck could actually fit.

And eventually, it worked.

The neck slid into the saxophone.

Problem solved.

Or so I thought.

Because then I noticed another problem.

The octave loop on the new neck was sitting too high. The octave bar on the saxophone wasn't reaching it.

So now I had a neck that physically fit onto the saxophone, but the octave mechanism wasn't properly connecting.

Fortunately, I was able to figure out another DIY solution.

Duct tape.

I put a small amount of duct tape around the octave loop—just enough to build it up so that the octave bar could actually reach it.

And, once again, it worked.

Now the neck fit onto the saxophone, and the octave mechanism was actually engaging properly.

Was this the most professional saxophone repair job in the world?

Probably not.

But that's not really the point.

I'm still learning the saxophone. I don't have years of experience as a professional saxophone technician, and I'm certainly not going to pretend that putting duct tape on something automatically makes me a repair expert.

But I also think there's something valuable about learning how your instrument works.

When you play an instrument, it's easy to think of it as this thing that you simply pick up and play. You put your fingers on the keys, blow into it, and hopefully music comes out.

But there's an entire mechanical system underneath that.

The neck has to fit properly. The octave mechanism has to line up. The keys have to move correctly. Tiny adjustments can make a difference.

And sometimes, something doesn't work quite right out of the box.

In this case, I was able to make a couple of very small adjustments and get the new neck working.

The sanding part especially taught me something: sometimes the solution isn't about making a huge change. It's about making a tiny change carefully.

I didn't sand the tenon down excessively. I just worked around it slowly until I had removed enough material for it to fit. That distinction matters.

There is definitely such a thing as taking off too much.

Once you remove material, you can't exactly put it back.

So I was deliberately conservative with it.

The same goes for the octave mechanism. I didn't need some elaborate modification. I just needed to compensate for the fact that the octave loop was sitting a little higher than the saxophone's octave bar could reach.

A little duct tape was enough.

And now I have a functioning new saxophone neck.

It's kind of funny, because this wasn't what I expected when I ordered it.

I thought I was ordering a new piece for my saxophone.

Instead, I apparently ordered a small DIY project.

But honestly, I'm not complaining.

One of the things I enjoy about learning music is that there is always something new to figure out. Sometimes that means learning a new song. Sometimes it means experimenting with different sounds. Sometimes it means figuring out how to record something.

And sometimes it means sitting there with sandpaper and duct tape wondering how the hell you're going to get your saxophone to work.

That's part of the journey too.

I'm sure a professional saxophone technician would have a much more sophisticated way of dealing with what I did here. And if something is seriously wrong with an instrument, I'd absolutely recommend having someone who knows what they're doing take a look at it.

But for this particular situation, I was able to make a couple of small adjustments myself.

And now?

The new neck fits.

The octave key works.

And I can get back to making music.

Sometimes that's all you need.

The whole Pink and Macklemore thing is ridiculous.

2026-09-09T14:54:48.492-07:00

I'm sorry, but it is.

You've got Pink criticizing Macklemore over his statements about Gaza and Palestine, and now we're watching two musicians go back and forth over one of the most complicated and horrific conflicts on the planet.

And honestly?

It's kinda cringe.

Not because either of them are forbidden from having an opinion.

They obviously aren't.

But why the fuck are we turning this into another celebrity feud?

Macklemore is a musician.

Pink is a musician.

Neither one of them is an Israeli politician.

Neither one of them is a Palestinian politician.

Neither one of them is a diplomat.

Neither one of them is sitting at a negotiating table trying to figure out how to end the conflict.

So what exactly are we doing here?

You've got two American musicians getting increasingly involved in a conflict happening thousands of miles away, neither of whom is directly involved in it, and now we're supposed to watch them argue over which side is right.

That's where I start rolling my eyes.

And before someone says, “But celebrities have a platform!”

Yes, they do.

Use it however you want.

But having a massive platform doesn't automatically mean your involvement is useful.

Sometimes it just means you're making a complicated situation into a fucking celebrity spectacle.

And that's what this feels like.

There are actual Palestinians living through this.

There are actual Israelis living through this.

There are families, civilians, hostages, soldiers, displaced people, and countless other human beings whose lives are directly affected by what happens.

Meanwhile, we're sitting here watching Pink and Macklemore argue about it.

Come on.

This isn't a fucking rap battle.

There isn't going to be a winner because one celebrity gets more likes or has the better Instagram post.

And honestly, I think both artists need to take a step back.

Not because they can't care.

They absolutely can care.

I care.

I want the best for Palestinians.

I want Israelis to be able to live in peace and security.

I want innocent people on both sides to stop suffering.

But caring about people doesn't mean I need to turn myself into an unofficial spokesperson for a conflict I'm not directly involved in.

And neither does Pink.

Neither does Macklemore.

They're musicians.

They make music.

Let them make music.

If they want to advocate for humanitarian causes, fine.

But when it turns into celebrities publicly going after each other over Israel and Palestine, that's when the whole thing starts feeling fucking ridiculous.

Because at the end of the day:

Pink isn't going to solve Israel and Palestine.

Macklemore isn't going to solve Israel and Palestine.

And their beef certainly isn't going to solve Israel and Palestine.

It's just another celebrity argument for the internet to obsess over.

And frankly?

The people actually living through this deserve better than becoming the backdrop for a celebrity feud.

I Can Like Your Music and Still Be Disappointed in You: My Thoughts on the Bad Wolves and Skillet Drama

2026-08-29T05:00:28.738-07:00

I have a confession to make.

I like Skillet.

I also like Bad Wolves.

Well, technically, I should probably phrase that a little differently. I liked Bad Wolves, at least during the era of the band that I was familiar with. And when it comes to Skillet, I really like their older material. I haven't kept up with everything they've released in recent years, so I'm not going to sit here and pretend that I've heard every song they've put out lately.

But I know what I like.

And I know what I don't like.

And what I don't like is what has been happening surrounding these two bands.

If you haven't been following the latest rock and metal drama, Bad Wolves were supposed to be part of Skillet's upcoming fall tour, along with Escape the Fate. Then, seemingly almost as quickly as the tour announcement happened, Bad Wolves were gone.

The situation became particularly ugly because of Bad Wolves' new vocalist, Sara "KILLBOY" Skinner.

According to Skinner, after Bad Wolves were announced for the tour, some Skillet fans began digging into her personal life. She said that people began conducting what she described as a "transvestigation," with fans making claims about her being transgender and also focusing on her OnlyFans presence. She subsequently announced that Bad Wolves would no longer be joining the tour.

And honestly?

What the fuck are we doing?

I mean that sincerely.

What the fuck are we doing?

Because there is something deeply pathetic about a group of people seeing a woman they don't know, deciding they need to investigate her body, her identity, her personal life, her sexuality, her internet presence and whatever else they can dig up, and then deciding that this somehow gives them ownership over whether she deserves to share a concert stage with their favorite band.

That isn't fandom.

That's harassment.

And before anybody gets confused, let me establish something very clearly:

I am not writing this because I'm some lifelong Bad Wolves superfan.

I'm really not.

The main Bad Wolves song I knew was their cover of "Zombie."

That was the song that put them on my radar.

Back when Tommy Vext was the band's vocalist, I heard their version of "Zombie" and liked it. It was one of those covers that actually made sense to me. They weren't simply copying The Cranberries. They took a song that was already powerful and gave it a heavier interpretation.

That was Bad Wolves to me.

And that's pretty much where my familiarity with the band stayed.

The band has obviously gone through a lot of changes since then. Vext is no longer in the band, there have been other lineup changes, and now Bad Wolves have Sara Skinner as their new vocalist.

So no, I haven't spent the last several years obsessively following Bad Wolves.

But that doesn't mean I can't look at what is happening now and say, "This is bullshit."

Because it is.

And what's especially frustrating to me is that I also like Skillet.

I grew up listening to some of their older material. Songs from the era of albums like Collide and Comatose are the Skillet that I know best. Those songs were part of the soundscape of my life for a while.

I haven't really followed their newer material.

Maybe it's great.

Maybe it's not.

I don't know.

And I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

But I don't need to have listened to every album Skillet has released in the last decade to have an opinion about this situation.

Because this isn't really about whether Skillet's latest album is good.

It's about how people behave.

And that's where I have become genuinely disappointed.

I'm disappointed in some Skillet fans.

And I'm disappointed in Skillet itself.

Let's start with the fans.

There is nothing wrong with being a fan of a Christian rock band.

There is nothing wrong with having religious beliefs.

There is nothing wrong with wanting the musicians you support to share certain values.

But there is a gigantic difference between saying, "I don't personally agree with this person's lifestyle," and deciding that you need to publicly humiliate them, investigate their gender, insult them, spread rumors about them, or pressure a band into removing them from a tour.

Those are not the same thing.

Not even remotely.

And some of the stuff being thrown at Skinner was absolutely disgusting.

She has described the reaction as people deciding she was a "trans OnlyFans" woman and attacking her based on those assumptions. She responded by basically saying that the accusations weren't even accurate in the way people thought they were.

But here's the thing.

Even if every accusation had been true, I still wouldn't understand why this is anybody else's fucking business.

Let's say she was transgender.

So what?

She's a musician.

She's performing on a stage.

She's singing songs.

Did she suddenly become incapable of singing because of her gender identity?

Does a guitar riff somehow sound different because the vocalist is trans?

Does a drumbeat become less musical?

Does a concert ticket become invalid?

Of course not.

And if she has an OnlyFans account?

Again:

So what?

You don't have to like it.

You don't have to subscribe to it.

You don't have to consume her content.

You don't even have to agree with it.

But you don't get to treat another adult's private life like a public referendum simply because you bought a ticket to see their band.

That's where I think a lot of people have completely lost the plot.

Being a fan doesn't make you the owner of the artist.

And loving a band doesn't give you the right to dictate who they are allowed to work with.

That's not how this should work.

And this is where Skillet itself enters the conversation.

Because according to Skinner, Bad Wolves were removed from the tour following this backlash.

Now, I want to be fair here.

Skillet has apparently not publicly explained the situation in detail. There is no public statement from the band that I have seen that lays everything out and says, "This is exactly why we removed Bad Wolves."

So I'm not going to claim something as an established fact when it hasn't been officially explained by Skillet.

But that's actually part of the problem.

Silence.

Because if your fanbase is going after another musician, and that musician is publicly telling the world that your fans harassed her and that this harassment apparently played a role in her band being removed from your tour, then you have a responsibility to say something.

Especially if you're a major band.

Especially if you're a band that has spent decades building a Christian identity.

Especially if you're a band whose audience includes people who presumably believe that compassion, forgiveness, humility and treating other people with dignity are important.

Silence isn't a great look.

And I'm sorry, but I expect better.

I don't expect Skillet to suddenly become a band that agrees with everything I believe.

That's not realistic.

I don't expect John Cooper to adopt my politics.

I don't expect Skillet's entire fanbase to agree with me.

I don't even expect them to like Bad Wolves.

What I expect is basic fucking decency.

That's it.

Basic decency.

If someone is being bullied by your fans, tell your fans to knock it off.

If someone is being harassed based on rumors about their gender, tell your fans that isn't acceptable.

If your organization made a decision because of legitimate contractual or business reasons, explain that.

If there is another side to the story, give it.

But don't just let the whole thing sit there while everyone else tries to figure out what the hell happened.

Because silence creates a vacuum.

And the internet will fill that vacuum with whatever narrative it wants.

That's exactly what we're seeing.

And honestly, I think there's an important lesson here for music fans in general.

We have become way too comfortable treating musicians like characters in our personal entertainment universes.

We forget that they're people.

We forget that they have families.

We forget that they have feelings.

We forget that they have lives outside of the songs we listen to.

We forget that a woman standing on a stage is not suddenly public property.

And we especially need to stop with this bizarre obsession with "investigating" people's identities.

The whole idea of "transvestigation" is fucking creepy.

I'm sorry.

It is.

Imagine looking at somebody and thinking, "I need to determine what gender this person really is."

Why?

Why do you care?

Why are you zooming in on photographs?

Why are you comparing facial structures?

Why are you analyzing someone's voice?

Why are you examining their body?

Why are you doing any of this?

Just listen to the fucking music.

If you don't like the singer, don't listen to the band.

That's it.

You are allowed to walk away.

You are allowed to say, "This isn't for me."

You are allowed to spend your money somewhere else.

You are allowed to criticize the music.

You are allowed to criticize a band's business decisions.

You are allowed to criticize their politics.

You are allowed to criticize their lyrics.

You are even allowed to say you don't like the singer's voice.

That's part of being an artist.

But there is a line between criticism and cruelty.

And some people crossed that line a long time ago.

And here's the funny part for me personally.

I don't even have a huge emotional attachment to Bad Wolves.

I could have ignored this entire story.

I could have said, "Oh, that's unfortunate," and moved on.

But I can't.

Because principles matter more to me than fandom.

And this is one of those situations where I don't care whether I agree with someone.

I don't care whether I like their music.

I don't care whether I like their politics.

I don't care whether I like their personal choices.

If somebody is being treated unfairly, I'm going to say that they're being treated unfairly.

That's just where I stand.

I would defend an artist I despise if I thought they were being treated unjustly.

And I would criticize an artist I love if I thought they were doing something wrong.

That's what having principles is supposed to mean.

Otherwise they're not principles.

They're just preferences.

And I think that's something that gets lost constantly in modern fandom.

People will defend absolutely anything their favorite celebrity does while condemning the exact same behavior from somebody they dislike.

If their favorite musician does something questionable, suddenly there's context.

Suddenly there's nuance.

Suddenly we need to wait for more information.

But when somebody they don't like does it?

"Fuck that person."

No.

That's not consistency.

And I'm tired of it.

You don't have to abandon Skillet because of this.

You don't have to stop listening to their old music.

You don't have to suddenly decide that every song they've ever made is garbage.

I certainly won't be pretending that I never enjoyed their older material.

I did.

I still do.

A song doesn't magically become bad because the people who made it disappointed me.

Music is complicated like that.

Sometimes a song can mean something to you even when the artist behind it becomes somebody you don't particularly want to support anymore.

That's part of the strange relationship we have with art.

But I can listen to an old Skillet song and still say:

"Skillet, you could have handled this better."

Those statements aren't contradictory.

I can like "Comatose."

I can remember enjoying Skillet's older work.

And I can simultaneously think that the way this situation has played out is fucking disappointing.

Likewise, I can remember Bad Wolves primarily because of "Zombie" and not suddenly become their biggest fan because of this controversy.

I don't have to.

I don't need to.

This isn't about picking a favorite band.

It's about picking a standard.

And my standard is simple:

Don't be an asshole.

Don't harass people.

Don't obsess over strangers' identities.

Don't spread rumors.

Don't treat someone's personal life like your entertainment.

And if your fans are doing something reprehensible, don't sit quietly and pretend you can't see it.

Say something.

That's the part that bothers me most about Skillet.

Not even necessarily the tour decision itself, because I don't know everything that happened behind the scenes.

It's the apparent silence.

Maybe there is information we don't have.

Maybe there are contractual details.

Maybe there are conversations happening privately.

Maybe there is another explanation.

Fine.

Then say that.

You don't have to give us every private detail.

But acknowledge the situation.

Because when one side is publicly saying, "Your fans harassed me and this affected our place on your tour," and the other side says absolutely nothing, people are naturally going to draw conclusions.

And those conclusions aren't necessarily going to be flattering.

I think Skillet owes their audience more than silence.

And I think their fans owe other human beings more than whatever the hell happened here.

Because at the end of the day, this is supposed to be music.

Music.

That's the part I keep coming back to.

We're talking about fucking rock music.

People screaming into microphones.

Guitars.

Drums.

Bass.

Lights.

A stage.

A bunch of people standing in a crowd screaming lyrics back at somebody.

That's what this is.

It should be fun.

It should be cathartic.

It should bring people together.

And instead we're sitting here arguing about whether a singer is "really" a woman, whether she has an OnlyFans account, whether her existence is acceptable to a particular religious fanbase, and whether a band should be allowed to perform because some people on the internet got angry.

What happened to just listening to the fucking music?

If you don't like Sara Skinner, don't listen to Bad Wolves.

If you don't like Skillet, don't listen to Skillet.

If you don't like Christian rock, don't listen to Christian rock.

If you don't like metal, don't listen to metal.

There are literally millions of songs in the world.

Go find something you enjoy.

You don't need to destroy somebody else to prove that your favorite band is good.

And you definitely don't need to humiliate another human being to prove that your religion is correct.

That's not strength.

That's insecurity.

So yeah.

I'm disappointed.

I'm disappointed in the people who decided to harass Sara Skinner.

I'm disappointed in the people who thought investigating a stranger's gender was an appropriate use of their time.

I'm disappointed that Bad Wolves ended up caught in the middle of this.

And I'm disappointed in Skillet for apparently allowing the situation to happen without publicly addressing it.

Maybe I'll listen to some old Skillet today.

Maybe I'll put on "Zombie."

Maybe I'll listen to both and remember why I liked them in the first place.

Because I don't want my enjoyment of music to depend on whether every musician I like is perfect.

Nobody is perfect.

But I do want the people I support to be held to the same basic standard I hold everyone else to.

Treat people like human beings.

Don't be cruel.

Don't harass people.

Don't judge someone based on rumors.

And when your own community starts acting like assholes, have the courage to tell them to stop.

That's not politics.

That's not left versus right.

That's not Christian versus atheist.

That's not trans versus cis.

That's not Bad Wolves versus Skillet.

That's basic fucking humanity.

And honestly?

I don't think that's too much to ask.

And honestly, I never thought I would see this kind of shit surrounding Skillet.

I mean, I knew it was possible. Given the current climate, the way online fandoms behave, and how fucking obsessed some people have become with policing other people's identities, I knew something like this could happen.

But I still didn't think I would actually see it happen with a band like Skillet.

Maybe that's part of why this has bothered me so much.

Because Skillet was never a band I associated with this kind of drama. They were just a band whose older music I liked. They were part of that rock and metal landscape I grew up listening to. I wasn't sitting around thinking about their fanbase or their internal politics or whatever.

So seeing this whole situation unfold has been one of those moments where I'm just sitting here thinking, "Really? We're doing this now?"

I knew the possibility existed.

I just never expected to actually see it.

And look, I wasn't completely oblivious to the politics surrounding Skillet either.

I knew that John Cooper, at least, had become pretty openly MAGA and had said and done things politically that I absolutely don't agree with. I'm not going to pretend otherwise. I've seen enough of his public commentary to know that we're probably not going to agree on a whole hell of a lot.

And yet, I still liked Skillet's older music.

Because I can separate the music from the person making it.

That's something I've always tried to do. I don't need an artist to share all of my political beliefs for me to appreciate something they created. Sometimes you can take the art for what it is while recognizing that the person behind it is someone you wouldn't necessarily want to have a political conversation with.

So even knowing that John Cooper had gone down the MAGA-chud political rabbit hole, I still didn't think that meant there was going to be some insane fucking drama surrounding the band like this.

That's the part that caught me off guard.

I knew there were political differences.

I knew there were things about Cooper that I didn't like.

I knew that Skillet had a fanbase that could be pretty politically and religiously intense.

But I didn't expect to wake up one day and be reading about Bad Wolves getting kicked off a tour amid controversy over their new female vocalist and fans allegedly digging into her identity and personal life.

There's a difference between thinking, "Yeah, this musician and I probably disagree on a lot of shit," and thinking, "Holy shit, what the fuck is happening with this band and its fanbase?"

And that's where I am right now.

I can acknowledge the political and cultural baggage surrounding Skillet while still admitting that their older music meant something to me.

Those two things can coexist.

I don't have to rewrite my own musical history just because I now find myself disappointed in the people and the culture surrounding a band I used to enjoy.

Why This One Hits a Little Differently for Me

And maybe this is the part I haven't really talked about yet: my own personal connection to Skillet.

I first discovered Skillet when I was in high school.

And honestly, the timing is kind of funny when I think about it now.

Because around that same period of my life, I was becoming less religious.

My relationship with religion was changing. I was questioning things. I was moving away from the beliefs I had grown up with. Eventually, I would become an atheist, but even before I got to that point, I was already starting to drift away from Christianity.

And yet here I was, listening to Skillet.

And I liked them.

Not because I was sitting there thinking, "Wow, these lyrics perfectly represent my religious beliefs."

They didn't.

I wasn't listening to Skillet because I was looking for Christian music.

I was listening to them because I liked the fucking music.

I liked the sound.

I liked the heaviness.

I liked the energy.

I liked the way the songs felt.

That's something I think people sometimes misunderstand about music. You don't necessarily connect with a song because you agree with every single word coming out of the singer's mouth. Sometimes you connect with the sound, the emotion, the instrumentation, the memories attached to it, or simply the fact that something about it hits you in a way you can't completely explain.

That's what Skillet was for me.

They became part of my high school soundtrack during a period when I was changing as a person.

And that's why I don't want to sit here and pretend that the music suddenly means nothing to me because I've become disappointed in the band or parts of its fanbase.

It still means something.

Those songs are attached to a version of me that existed years ago.

And even though I've changed dramatically since then, that version of me was still me.

I can look back at my high school years and think about the person I was becoming, the questions I was asking, the things I believed, the things I stopped believing, and the music I was listening to while all of that was happening.

Skillet was part of that.

That's why this whole situation feels weird.

Because when you have a personal history with a band, you don't necessarily want to see them become involved in something like this.

You don't want to look at a band whose music you enjoyed when you were younger and think, "Seriously?"

And again, I'm not saying Skillet is some band that I've followed religiously throughout my entire life.

I haven't.

I haven't kept up with all of their newer music.

I'm much more familiar with their older material.

But that's almost beside the point.

I don't have to be a hardcore fan to have memories attached to their music.

I don't have to agree with John Cooper politically.

I don't have to agree with his MAGA politics.

I don't have to agree with his religious beliefs.

And I certainly don't have to agree with everything that happens within the Skillet fanbase.

I can still say, "Yeah, I used to fucking love some of these songs."

And that's okay.

That's the weird thing about growing up.

You don't necessarily stop being the person you used to be. You become someone new while carrying pieces of all the people you've been along the way.

The music you listened to when you were sixteen doesn't disappear because you're thirty.

The memories don't disappear.

The songs don't disappear.

And the fact that you no longer hold the same beliefs you did back then doesn't mean you have to hate everything associated with that period of your life.

Sometimes you can simply say:

"I've changed."

And:

"I still like this."

Both can be true.

That's how I feel about Skillet.

And that's also why I'm disappointed now.

Because when you have a personal connection to something, even a relatively small one, you want to believe that the people behind it are going to conduct themselves in a way that you can at least respect.

I don't need perfection.

I don't need agreement.

I don't need Skillet to suddenly become progressive.

I don't need John Cooper to start agreeing with my worldview.

I'm not asking for that.

I'm asking for basic human decency.

If the allegations surrounding this situation are accurate, then I think the harassment directed toward Sara Skinner was completely unacceptable.

And if Skillet's fans were responsible for creating that environment, then those fans should be called out.

And if Skillet really did remove Bad Wolves from the tour because of that backlash, then I think Skillet should explain why.

That's all.

Give people some clarity.

Say something.

Don't leave everyone else to speculate.

Because silence doesn't make controversy disappear.

It just makes people wonder what you're not saying.

And maybe there is more to this story than I know.

Maybe there are things happening behind the scenes.

Maybe there are contractual reasons.

Maybe there's another side of this that hasn't been made public.

Fine.

I'm willing to acknowledge that.

But until Skillet actually says something publicly, I'm left looking at what has happened and thinking that this is fucking disappointing.

And perhaps that's the biggest takeaway I have from all of this.

I don't want fandom to become an excuse for abandoning our principles.

I don't want to become the kind of person who says, "Well, that's my favorite band, so whatever they did is automatically okay."

No.

If I like you, I can still criticize you.

If I listen to your music, I can still disagree with you.

If your songs were important to me when I was younger, I can still tell you when I think you've fucked up.

That's what being honest means.

And honestly, I think we need more of that.

Less blind loyalty.

Less treating musicians like they're untouchable.

Less treating other fans like enemies.

Less digging through people's personal lives.

Less obsessing over someone's gender.

Less harassment.

Less cruelty.

More fucking humanity.

I started listening to Skillet when I was a kid who was already beginning to question his religious beliefs.

I listened to them because I liked their music.

Years later, I'm a very different person.

My beliefs are different.

My politics are different.

My worldview is different.

My life is different.

But I can still remember what those songs meant to me.

And I can still appreciate the music while saying that I'm disappointed in what I'm seeing now.

That's not hypocrisy.

That's growth.

I don't know where things go from here with Skillet, Bad Wolves, Sara Skinner, or any of the people involved in this mess.

Maybe more information will come out.

Maybe Skillet will eventually address it.

Maybe this will blow over and everyone will move on to the next internet controversy.

But I hope something actually gets learned from it.

I hope Skillet fans learn that being a fan doesn't give you permission to harass people.

I hope musicians understand that sometimes they need to stand up and tell their own communities when they've crossed a line.

And I hope the rest of us remember that we can disagree with people without dehumanizing them.

Because at the end of the day, I don't really care who wins some stupid internet beef.

I care about how people treat each other.

And that's why I'm writing about this.

Not because I'm some die-hard Bad Wolves fan.

Not because I'm some current Skillet superfan.

Not because I agree with everyone involved.

I'm writing about it because I remember being a teenager listening to Skillet while my own beliefs were changing.

I remember liking that music.

And I never thought I'd be sitting here years later writing about Skillet being surrounded by this kind of fucking drama.

I knew it was possible.

Given the current climate, I knew it was possible.

But I still didn't think I'd actually see it.

And maybe that's why I'm so disappointed.

I expected better.

And sometimes that's the most frustrating thing of all.

You can criticize something because you hate it.

But sometimes the strongest criticism comes from the fact that you used to like it.

I still like those old Skillet songs.

I'm not going to lie about that.

But liking the music doesn't mean I have to shut up when I think something is wrong.

And I'm not going to shut up.

And there's another reason Skillet's older music stuck with me: it helped me through periods of uncertainty.

There were times when I didn't know what the hell I was doing with my life. Times when I was questioning what I believed, where I was going, what kind of person I wanted to become, and what the future was even going to look like.

And during those periods, I had music.

Skillet's older songs were part of that.

Even as I was becoming less religious, their music could still speak to something in me. I could take the emotional weight of those songs and apply it to whatever I was going through at the time.

That's another thing people sometimes don't understand about music.

A song doesn't have to perfectly match your beliefs for it to help you.

Sometimes you aren't even thinking about the literal meaning of the lyrics. You're just feeling something. The guitars hit. The drums hit. The vocals hit. The emotion hits. And suddenly you're able to sit with something that you couldn't quite put into words yourself.

That's what some of Skillet's older music did for me.

It was there during uncertainty.

It was there during periods where I was trying to figure myself out.

And even though my relationship with religion eventually changed completely, the emotional connection I had with some of those songs didn't simply disappear.

That's why I can look at Skillet now and feel conflicted.

Because I'm not just looking at some random band I heard once.

I'm looking at a band whose music was part of my life during a time when I was still figuring out who I was.

And I think that's worth acknowledging.

You can outgrow someone's worldview without necessarily outgrowing every piece of art that helped you survive a particular chapter of your life.

Sometimes the meaning of a song changes as you change.

Sometimes you hear the same song years later and realize that it means something completely different to you now.

And sometimes you simply remember, "Yeah. I listened to this when shit was uncertain, and somehow it helped."

That's what Skillet's older music is for me.

And that's why this whole situation hits a little harder than it otherwise might.

Because when a band has been part of your life, even if you haven't followed them closely for years, you don't necessarily want to see them surrounded by controversy like this.

I don't want to rewrite my memories.

I don't want to pretend the music never mattered.

It did.

It helped me through some uncertain periods of my life.

And I can appreciate that while still saying that I'm disappointed in what I'm seeing now.

Those two things can exist at the same time.

The music helped me.

I still appreciate the music.

And I can still criticize the people and circumstances surrounding that music.

That's the honest answer.

August 11: The Day I Released My Debut Album

2026-08-25T15:32:28.606-07:00

August 11, 2026, wasn't just another day on the calendar for me.

It was my late uncle's birthday.

He died in 2019.

For years, August 11 has carried a certain weight for me. It was a date connected to someone I loved and lost. A date that could easily become associated with sadness, grief, and everything that comes with losing someone.

But this year, something different happened.

I released my debut album on that date.

And honestly?

I almost didn't.

I Wasn't Planning to Release It Yet

Before August 11, I was still trying to figure out when I wanted to release my debut album.

I was thinking about timing.

I was thinking about whether I should wait.

I was thinking about whether I should give myself more time.

I had already put so much work into the project that I didn't want to just throw it out into the world immediately.

There was this part of me that wanted to hold off.

Maybe release it later.

Maybe wait a few more weeks.

Maybe figure everything out first.

I was planning.

Thinking.

Overthinking.

Trying to find the "right" release date.

And then August 11 came around.

I knew what day it was.

I knew it was my uncle's birthday.

And I started thinking about the meaning that date had carried for me.

Then I had a thought.

Why not?

Why couldn't August 11 become something else too?

Why couldn't I take a day that had become associated with loss and give it another meaning?

And that's when I basically said:

Fuck it.

Let's release the album today.

Turning a Sad Date Into a Historic One

So I made the decision.

August 11, 2026.

That's the release date.

My debut album, Jaime David, was going out into the world.

And suddenly, August 11 meant something completely different.

It was still my uncle's birthday.

It still carried the memory of him.

That doesn't disappear.

But now it also became the day I released my first album.

It became the day I officially stepped into something I had never really thought I'd do.

It became the day I could look back on and say:

That's when I became a musician.

And I love that.

Because I don't want August 11 to be defined only by death.

I don't want it to be only a sad day.

I don't want it to be only a reminder of somebody who isn't here anymore.

I wanted to create something.

Something new.

Something alive.

Something that could continue existing long after that day.

So I did.

Maybe That's What Art Is About

There's something poetic about releasing an album on the birthday of someone who died years ago.

Because music is about creating something that continues.

A song can outlive the person who wrote it.

A recording can exist decades later.

A lyric can reach someone who wasn't even alive when it was written.

Art has a way of surviving us.

And maybe that's why this date felt right.

My uncle isn't here anymore.

But August 11 is still here.

And now, something I created exists on that date too.

Every year when August 11 comes around, I won't just think about loss.

I'll also be able to think:

That's the day I released my first album.

That's the day I took a chance.

That's the day I decided to stop waiting.

That's the day I said, "Fuck it. I'm doing this."

And honestly, I think that's pretty damn meaningful.

I Didn't Need the Perfect Moment

I think I was getting caught up in the idea that there had to be a perfect release date.

The perfect time.

The perfect plan.

The perfect circumstances.

But there really isn't such a thing.

At some point, you have to stop planning and start doing.

And August 11 gave me that push.

I realized that I could keep thinking about when to release the album.

Or I could actually release the damn thing.

So I chose the latter.

And I'm glad I did.

Because now the album has a story attached to it that I never could have planned.

It isn't just my debut album.

It's the album I released on my late uncle's birthday.

It's the album that transformed August 11 for me.

It's the album that came into existence because, on that particular day, I decided to stop waiting.

A Day Can Hold More Than One Meaning

I think that's something we sometimes forget.

A day can be sad and happy.

It can be painful and beautiful.

It can remind you of someone you've lost while also reminding you of something you've created.

Those emotions don't have to cancel each other out.

I can miss my uncle.

I can remember him.

I can acknowledge that he died in 2019.

And I can still celebrate what happened on August 11, 2026.

Those things can exist together.

And maybe that's what makes the date even more meaningful.

I'm not replacing the memory of him.

I'm adding another chapter to the meaning of the day.

I'm taking something that could have remained entirely somber and saying:

This is going to be a day of creation too.

My Debut Album Became Part of My Story

Jaime David is my debut album.

It's the first major musical project I've released.

It's a collection of songs that represents where I was creatively at this particular point in my life.

And now, its release date is permanently connected to August 11.

That means every time I look back at the album, I'll remember that moment.

I'll remember sitting there and thinking about whether I should wait.

I'll remember going back and forth.

I'll remember realizing that I was overthinking everything.

And I'll remember saying:

Fuck it. Release it today.

That decision might have been spontaneous.

But I'm really glad I made it.

Because sometimes the moments that seem impulsive at the time become the moments you remember forever.

August 11, 2026

So that's what August 11 became.

Not just a birthday.

Not just a date associated with someone I lost.

Not just a day of remembrance.

It became the day I released my debut album.

It became a day of music.

A day of creation.

A day of taking a chance.

A day of beginning something new.

And in my own personal history, I think August 11, 2026, is going to be historic.

Because that's the day I released Jaime David.

That's the day I stopped waiting for the perfect moment.

That's the day I decided that the album was ready to exist in the world.

And that's the day I took a date that had been connected to loss and gave it another story.

A story about creation.

A story about music.

A story about moving forward.

I don't think that makes the sadness disappear.

And I don't want it to.

But now, when August 11 comes around, there will be another feeling there too.

Pride.

Because I made something.

I released something.

I created something that didn't exist before.

And I chose to do it on a day that already meant so much to me.

So here's to August 11.

Here's to my uncle.

Here's to music.

Here's to creation.

And here's to the beginning of my journey as a musician.

August 11, 2026.

The day I said:

Fuck it. I'm releasing my album today.

And I'm damn glad I did.

Dolly Parton Is Gone. But Her Music Isn't Going Anywhere.

2026-08-25T15:28:57.388-07:00

Today, August 25, 2026, we lost one of the greatest songwriters and performers to ever pick up a guitar.

Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80.

And as someone who writes and makes music myself, this one hits differently.

Because Dolly Parton wasn't merely famous.

She was a songwriter.

She was a musician.

She was a storyteller.

She was an artist.

And she understood something that I think every songwriter eventually has to learn: sometimes the simplest stories are the most powerful ones.

Dolly could take heartbreak, poverty, love, jealousy, ambition, loneliness, family and everyday life and turn them into songs that people could understand.

That's an incredible gift.

Her family announced that she died peacefully in Nashville at age 80. Her death marks the end of a career that lasted roughly six decades and produced some of the most recognizable songs in country and popular music.

But I don't really want to write an obituary.

I want to talk about the music.

Dolly Parton Was a Songwriter First

One of the things I find fascinating about Dolly Parton is that songwriting was never simply something she did because she happened to be a famous singer.

She was genuinely a songwriter.

She wrote songs because she had stories to tell.

And she wrote a lot of them.

Her catalog includes thousands of compositions, and some of those songs became enormous hits for other artists.

The obvious example is "I Will Always Love You."

Dolly originally wrote and recorded the song herself in the 1970s. It became an even larger worldwide phenomenon when Whitney Houston recorded it for The Bodyguard soundtrack in 1992. Dolly's songwriting therefore reached audiences who might never have otherwise listened to country music.

Think about how incredible that is.

A song begins with one person sitting down and writing.

Then someone else records it.

Then another generation discovers it.

Then another artist interprets it.

And suddenly something that began as one person's emotional expression becomes part of millions of people's lives.

That's what songwriting can do.

"Jolene" Is a Masterclass in Simplicity

Then there's "Jolene."

You don't need a complicated story.

A woman is begging another woman not to take the man she loves.

That's basically it.

But Dolly's performance makes the desperation feel enormous.

The song doesn't need a thousand words.

It doesn't need some gigantic production.

It needs the emotion.

That's one of the things I love about songwriting.

Sometimes the strongest songs aren't the ones with the most complicated lyrics.

They're the ones where you can immediately understand what the songwriter is feeling.

"Jolene" does that.

You know exactly what this person is afraid of.

You know exactly what she wants.

And you understand exactly why she's pleading.

That's songwriting.

Dolly Turned Her Life Into Music

Dolly also had an incredible ability to turn personal experiences into art.

"Coat of Many Colors" is a perfect example.

She wrote about growing up poor and about a coat her mother made from scraps of fabric.

On paper, that sounds like a small story.

But Dolly turned it into something universal.

It's not really just about a coat.

It's about poverty.

It's about family.

It's about childhood.

It's about dignity.

It's about the way a child can find enormous value in something that other people might consider worthless.

That's the magic of music.

You can take something incredibly specific and somehow make millions of people see themselves in it.

She Crossed Genres Before Genre-Crossing Was Cool

Dolly's influence also goes far beyond traditional country music.

She crossed into pop.

She crossed into rock.

She crossed into bluegrass.

She crossed into gospel.

She crossed into film music.

She collaborated with artists from completely different musical backgrounds.

And she never seemed particularly interested in being trapped by a label.

That matters to me as an independent musician.

I've been experimenting with different styles myself.

Rock.

Rap.

Reggae.

Polka.

Instrumental music.

AI-assisted music.

Different sounds and different approaches.

And one thing I've learned is that sometimes trying to force yourself into one genre can limit what you create.

Dolly Parton's career is a reminder that you don't necessarily have to choose one box.

You can make the music you want to make.

You can evolve.

You can experiment.

You can surprise people.

And you can still have a recognizable identity.

The Voice Was Only Part of the Story

Obviously, Dolly had a distinctive voice.

You hear her sing and you know it's Dolly.

But her voice wasn't what made her legendary by itself.

It was the combination.

The voice.

The songwriting.

The personality.

The performance.

The storytelling.

The humor.

The visual identity.

The ability to connect with an audience.

That's something I think aspiring musicians sometimes overlook.

Being a musician isn't necessarily about having the technically best voice in the room.

It's about having something to say.

It's about making people feel something.

It's about becoming recognizable.

Dolly understood that.

She wasn't trying to be somebody else.

She was Dolly.

And that was enough.

More than enough.

She Didn't Need to Pretend to Be Someone She Wasn't

There's another reason Dolly's career fascinates me.

She embraced who she was.

The big hair.

The rhinestones.

The makeup.

The humor.

The Southern accent.

The larger-than-life personality.

She could have tried to become more "serious."

She could have tried to hide the things that made her distinctive.

Instead, she leaned into them.

And underneath all the glitter was an extraordinarily disciplined songwriter and businesswoman.

That contrast is part of what made her so compelling.

The rhinestones weren't the substance.

They were part of the presentation.

The substance was the music.

And Then There Was "9 to 5"

"9 to 5" is another example of Dolly's ability to write something immediately accessible while still saying something.

It's catchy.

It's funny.

It's memorable.

But it's also a song about working, exploitation, frustration and wanting something better.

And somehow Dolly turned that into a massive hit.

That's difficult to do.

A song can have a serious message and still be fun.

It doesn't have to sound like a lecture.

Sometimes you can make people dance while you're telling them something important.

That's an art form in itself.

Her Music Outlived Her

And now Dolly is gone.

But here's the strange thing about being a musician.

Your physical life ends.

Your music doesn't have to.

Dolly Parton died today.

But "Jolene" is still going to be played tomorrow.

"I Will Always Love You" is still going to be sung.

"9 to 5" is still going to be heard.

"Coat of Many Colors" is still going to tell its story.

And somewhere, some kid who has never heard Dolly Parton before is going to discover one of her songs.

Maybe they'll hear it in a movie.

Maybe their parents will play it.

Maybe they'll stumble across it online.

Maybe they'll hear another artist cover it.

And that kid might become a musician.

That's the beautiful thing about music.

It doesn't die when the person who created it dies.

It keeps moving.

Every Songwriter Eventually Leaves Something Behind

As someone who writes songs myself, that's something I think about.

I don't know how far my own music will travel.

I don't know how many people will hear it.

I don't know whether something I write today will matter to somebody twenty years from now.

And honestly, none of us really know.

But that's not necessarily the point.

We create because we have something inside us that wants to come out.

Dolly had that.

She wrote because she had stories.

She sang because she had something to communicate.

She performed because she wanted to connect.

And eventually, she created a body of work so enormous that it became impossible to separate her music from American popular culture.

That's one hell of a life in music.

Thank You, Dolly

I'm not going to pretend that I was personally close to Dolly Parton.

I wasn't.

But as a musician and songwriter, I can appreciate what she accomplished.

She showed what can happen when you take songwriting seriously.

She showed that country music can reach enormous audiences.

She showed that a song can cross generations.

She showed that vulnerability can become strength.

She showed that you don't have to abandon where you came from in order to become successful.

And perhaps most importantly, she showed that being yourself can be one of the most powerful artistic choices you can make.

Today, Dolly Parton is gone.

But the songs remain.

The recordings remain.

The performances remain.

The covers remain.

The memories remain.

And the influence remains.

That's the thing about music.

A musician eventually leaves the stage.

But the song keeps playing.

So rest in peace, Dolly.

Thank you for the songs.

Thank you for the stories.

Thank you for the voice.

Thank you for showing generations of musicians what it means to write from the heart.

And thank you for leaving behind enough music that we can keep listening to you for generations to come.

The woman may be gone.

The music isn't.

Demon Hunter, KPop Demon Hunters, and the Strange Collision of Two Very Different Demon-Hunting Worlds

2026-08-22T08:27:10.293-07:00

There are some bands that you discover and immediately think, “Yeah, this is probably going to stick with me.” For me, one of those bands is Demon Hunter. I have listened to a lot of different music over the years, and my musical tastes have become increasingly weird and eclectic. I can go from J-pop to K-pop to reggae to polka to mariachi to rap to metal without really caring whether the genres are supposed to fit together. But Demon Hunter is one of those bands that has a particular emotional quality that has always stood out to me.

And now, rather unexpectedly, Demon Hunter has found itself in the middle of a very strange pop-culture story involving Netflix, an animated movie, K-pop, demons, trademarks, and a whole lot of confusion.

Yes, I am talking about KPop Demon Hunters.

I have never actually watched KPop Demon Hunters. I don't have Netflix. Part of the reason is simply that I don't want to keep paying for another streaming service. Streaming services have gotten ridiculously expensive, and at some point you have to look at your monthly expenses and say, “Do I really need another subscription just so I can watch this one thing?” So I have never sat down and watched the movie myself.

But I have heard plenty about it.

I have heard that it is genuinely good. I have heard the music is catchy. I have heard the animation is impressive. I have heard the characters are fun, the story has more substance than you might initially expect, and the movie became an enormous phenomenon. KPop Demon Hunters was released on Netflix in June 2025 and became a massive success, eventually becoming Netflix's most-watched film and winning the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. A sequel has also been announced.

So I am not approaching this from the position of someone who thinks KPop Demon Hunters is automatically terrible because it is popular.

Quite the opposite.

From everything I have heard, I actually think I would probably enjoy the movie.

And that is part of what makes the current Demon Hunter lawsuit so fascinating.

Because there is something almost comically strange about the fact that one of my favorite metal bands, Demon Hunter, is now suing Netflix over a movie called KPop Demon Hunters.

The premise sounds like the setup to a joke.

A Christian metal band called Demon Hunter.

An animated K-pop movie called KPop Demon Hunters.

Both involve music.

Both involve demons.

And now they are fighting over the name.

Except this isn't just some silly internet argument. Demon Hunter's corporate entity, Hyde Lane, filed a federal lawsuit in California on August 18, 2026, naming Netflix, Netflix Studios, and AEG Presents as defendants. The lawsuit alleges trademark infringement, false designation of origin, and unfair competition. The band's argument is essentially that the enormous success of KPop Demon Hunters has created confusion around the Demon Hunter name, particularly now that the franchise is moving beyond simply being a movie and into music, merchandise, and live performances.

And honestly, I can understand why Demon Hunter would be concerned.

At the same time, I can also understand why Netflix would look at this and say, “Wait, seriously?”

That's what makes this such an interesting situation.

Demon Hunter isn't some band that formed last year and suddenly decided that the words “Demon Hunter” belong to them because a Netflix movie became popular. The band was formed in Seattle in 2000. They have spent more than two decades releasing music, building a fan base, touring, selling merchandise, and establishing the Demon Hunter name. Their albums have appeared on the Billboard 200 and Billboard's Top Christian Albums chart.

That history matters.

If you have spent twenty-five years building a musical identity around a particular name, I can see why you would be concerned when a gigantic entertainment company suddenly creates a global phenomenon with an extremely similar name.

And the situation becomes more complicated because KPop Demon Hunters isn't merely a movie anymore.

The movie is about HUNTR/X, a fictional K-pop girl group consisting of Rumi, Mira, and Zoey. They aren't merely pop stars. They secretly fight supernatural threats while performing for massive audiences. Their main antagonists include the Saja Boys, a rival boy band that is secretly made up of demons.

In other words, the entire concept revolves around music and demon hunting.

That's a pretty significant overlap with a real band called Demon Hunter.

And now Netflix is expanding the franchise into live entertainment.

That's where this becomes particularly important from a trademark perspective.

The lawsuit isn't simply asking a court to erase the existence of a movie because its title contains similar words. According to reporting on the complaint, Demon Hunter is particularly challenging the use of the KPop Demon Hunters name in connection with recorded music, live performances, merchandise, and related entertainment. The band argues that those areas overlap substantially with what it has been doing for decades.

The band's complaint reportedly points to examples of actual confusion, including a person who accidentally purchased tickets for a Demon Hunter concert when they intended to attend a KPop Demon Hunters event. The lawsuit also describes media confusion involving an inquiry apparently intended for someone associated with the animated film.

That is where I think the band's argument becomes more understandable.

Because imagine being a fan of Demon Hunter.

You hear that there is a major entertainment event called KPop Demon Hunters.

You see advertisements.

You see the words “Demon Hunter.”

You might reasonably assume there is some relationship.

Maybe the band is involved.

Maybe it is a new side project.

Maybe there is a collaboration.

Maybe it's a tour.

Maybe it's a completely different thing.

That's not necessarily because people are stupid. It's because branding exists precisely to tell people where something comes from.

And when you have a massive entertainment franchise whose name contains the name of an established musical act, there is at least a legitimate question about whether consumers could become confused.

Of course, there is another side.

KPop Demon Hunters is obviously a different phrase from Demon Hunter.

It's plural.

It has “KPop” in front of it.

It's an animated fantasy film.

The characters are fictional.

The story is very different from the band's actual music.

Netflix also argues that the allegations are without merit and says it intends to defend the case.

And I think that is important to acknowledge.

Just because Demon Hunter filed a lawsuit does not mean Demon Hunter has automatically won the argument.

A lawsuit is an allegation.

A court still has to decide whether the legal claims are valid.

And trademarks are not simply a matter of saying, “I used these words first, therefore nobody else can ever use them.”

There are all sorts of questions involved, including what goods and services are covered, how similar the marks are, whether consumers are likely to be confused, and how the respective brands are being used.

But there is something else that makes this situation hilarious from a purely cultural perspective.

Demon Hunter has spent decades making music about demons.

KPop Demon Hunters is about pop stars fighting demons.

And now the real Demon Hunter is fighting the KPop Demon Hunters.

It's almost too perfect.

The fictional demon hunters have demons to fight.

The real demon hunters have lawyers to fight.

And somewhere in the middle, Netflix is probably wondering how it ended up in a legal dispute with a metal band.

I have to admit, though, that my personal connection to Demon Hunter makes me look at this a little differently than I might otherwise.

I don't consider myself some enormous expert on every album the band has ever released. But there are two Demon Hunter songs that particularly stand out to me: “I Am a Stone” and “I Will Fail You.”

Those are probably my two favorites.

And I think the reason I gravitate toward those songs says something about what I like about Demon Hunter in the first place.

“I Am a Stone” has this feeling of emotional isolation and resilience that I find incredibly powerful. There is something about the idea of becoming a stone, of becoming emotionally hardened, of trying to withstand whatever is coming at you, that hits differently depending on where you are in life.

It isn't simply an angry metal song.

It feels introspective.

It feels like someone trying to make sense of their own emotional state.

And that's something I appreciate in music.

I like music that can be loud, but I don't necessarily need the lyrics to be loud too.

Sometimes the most powerful songs are the ones where the instrumentation creates intensity while the lyrics are dealing with something much quieter and more internal.

That's also part of why “I Will Fail You” resonates with me.

That song has a very different emotional character. There is vulnerability there. There is an acknowledgement of human limitation and the possibility of failure. And I think that is one of the reasons Demon Hunter has remained interesting to me.

There is something very human about admitting that you are not invincible.

Music doesn't always need to tell you that you're going to conquer everything.

Sometimes it can say, “You are going to screw up.”

Sometimes it can say, “You are going to hurt.”

Sometimes it can say, “You might fail someone.”

And sometimes that's more honest.

I think that's what I appreciate about those two songs. They aren't simply songs I like because they sound good. They carry emotional weight.

And that brings me back to KPop Demon Hunters.

Because even though I haven't watched it, the story sounds like it has some surprisingly similar ingredients.

At the center of KPop Demon Hunters is Rumi, the leader of HUNTR/X. She isn't simply a superhero who happens to sing K-pop. According to Netflix's own character material, Rumi is half human and half demon, which makes her own identity part of the conflict. Her demonic heritage is both a source of power and something that creates internal struggle.

Then there is Jinu, the leader of the Saja Boys.

His story is also more complicated than simply “evil demon boy.”

Jinu was originally human and made a deal with the demon Gwi-Ma for fame and fortune. He became a demon and spent centuries serving that power. But eventually he begins questioning the role he has accepted and ultimately sacrifices himself to help Rumi.

That actually sounds like a pretty interesting story.

It isn't just “good people fight bad demons.”

It is about identity.

It is about temptation.

It is about fame.

It is about guilt.

It is about what people sacrifice to get what they want.

It is about whether someone who has done terrible things can change.

Those are pretty universal themes.

And maybe that's why KPop Demon Hunters connected with so many people.

You can make the surface incredibly colorful and ridiculous. You can have magical weapons, supernatural monsters, glamorous outfits, synchronized choreography, giant concerts, and demon boy bands. But underneath all of that, you can still tell a story about insecurity, identity, trauma, relationships, temptation, and redemption.

That's one of the great things about fantasy.

You can make the metaphor literal.

Instead of saying someone is battling their inner demons, you can literally have them battle demons.

And apparently, in KPop Demon Hunters, that's basically the premise.

I also think the contrast between the two Demon Hunters is fascinating.

Demon Hunter the band comes from Christian metal.

KPop Demon Hunters comes from Korean pop culture and animated fantasy.

One is a real band.

One is a fictional group.

One has been around since 2000.

The other became a worldwide phenomenon after a 2025 Netflix release.

One is associated with Christian metal.

The other is associated with K-pop.

They are wildly different.

And yet they ended up colliding because of two words.

Demon.

Hunter.

That's almost absurd.

But it also demonstrates how powerful a name can become.

A band name isn't just a label.

It's a brand.

It's attached to memories, music, artwork, concerts, merchandise, social media, search results, streaming platforms, and the expectations people develop over years.

If someone searches for Demon Hunter, they expect something.

If someone searches for KPop Demon Hunters, they expect something completely different.

But as the two brands become more prominent in the same entertainment ecosystem, the possibility of overlap becomes more meaningful.

And the timing makes this even more interesting because KPop Demon Hunters isn't fading away.

Netflix has already announced a sequel, with directors Maggie Kang and Chris Appelhans returning. Netflix said the first movie had surpassed 500 million views on the service, and the sequel is intended to continue the story.

There is also music.

There is merchandise.

And there is a planned live tour.

That means this isn't just a situation where a movie title happens to resemble a band's name for two hours.

The fictional franchise is becoming a larger entertainment brand.

That is probably why Demon Hunter is taking the issue seriously now.

Personally, I find myself in a weird position because I like Demon Hunter and I have nothing against KPop Demon Hunters.

I haven't even seen the movie!

So I can't honestly sit here and say, “KPop Demon Hunters sucks and Demon Hunter is obviously right.”

That would be ridiculous.

I haven't watched it.

I have heard good things about it.

I have heard the music.

I know the basic story.

And based on what I know, I can absolutely understand why people became fans.

If I had Netflix, I might watch it.

But I don't.

Netflix costs money, and there are only so many subscriptions I am willing to maintain. I already have plenty of other things competing for my attention and my wallet. I don't particularly want to spend money every month on a service just because everyone is talking about one movie.

Maybe someday I'll watch it.

Maybe I'll find some other legitimate way to see it.

But for now, I am basically observing the KPop Demon Hunters phenomenon from outside the window.

And now, somehow, one of my favorite bands is suing the company behind it.

What a strange world.

There is also something kind of funny about how easily people could misunderstand the situation.

Someone could hear, “Demon Hunter is suing KPop Demon Hunters,” and assume this is some kind of ridiculous culture-war feud.

It isn't really that.

This isn't Demon Hunter saying that K-pop is bad.

It isn't Demon Hunter saying that animated movies are bad.

It isn't necessarily Demon Hunter saying that Netflix shouldn't make a movie about demon hunters.

The dispute is fundamentally about branding and the commercial use of the name.

That's an important distinction.

You can like KPop Demon Hunters and still understand why Demon Hunter might be concerned.

You can like Demon Hunter and still understand why Netflix might think its title is sufficiently distinct.

You don't have to turn this into a team sport.

And honestly, I would rather see people approach it that way.

I am particularly interested in what happens as the case develops because the circumstances are so unusual.

The lawsuit involves what could be described as a smaller, established music brand confronting a gigantic entertainment company whose franchise has exploded into global popularity.

That's where the concept of “reverse confusion” becomes interesting. Reporting on the case has described Demon Hunter's position in those terms: rather than a large company being confused with a smaller company, the concern is that the massive newer brand could overwhelm the identity of the older one.

That is a fascinating problem.

Normally, when people think about trademark confusion, they imagine someone copying a famous brand.

But what happens when the newer thing becomes vastly more famous than the older thing?

What happens when somebody searches for a name that has existed for decades, but the search results are dominated by something that appeared much more recently?

What happens when the public starts associating a phrase with the newer thing?

That's not a trivial problem for the older brand.

And I think that's probably the heart of what Demon Hunter is worried about.

Imagine spending twenty-five years building something, only for a Netflix franchise to come along and make the words “Demon Hunter” immediately associated with something else.

That's got to feel strange.

At the same time, Netflix didn't create the concept of demons or demon hunters. Those are ancient concepts that appear throughout mythology, religion, fantasy, literature, movies, television, games, and music.

So the legal question isn't whether anyone is allowed to make art about demon hunters.

Of course they are.

The question is much narrower: whether the particular branding and commercial uses of KPop Demon Hunters infringe rights associated with Demon Hunter.

That's for the courts to decide.

And until that happens, I'm not going to pretend I know exactly how the case will turn out.

What I do know is that this is one of the strangest entertainment stories I've encountered in a while.

I also know that it has reminded me why I like Demon Hunter.

Because underneath all the legal drama and internet jokes, there is still a band whose music has meant something to me.

“I Am a Stone” is still one of my favorites.

“I Will Fail You” is still one of my favorites.

Those songs existed long before Netflix had a K-pop demon-hunting movie.

They existed long before HUNTR/X.

They existed before the Saja Boys.

And they existed before somebody accidentally bought the wrong concert ticket.

That's worth remembering.

The lawsuit doesn't define Demon Hunter.

The band existed before KPop Demon Hunters, and whatever happens in court, the music will continue to exist afterward.

And maybe that's ultimately what interests me most.

Names can collide.

Brands can collide.

Entertainment franchises can collide.

But music can still stand on its own.

I can listen to “I Am a Stone” and not think about Netflix.

I can listen to “I Will Fail You” and not think about trademark law.

I can appreciate the music for what it is.

And somewhere out there, millions of people can enjoy KPop Demon Hunters without necessarily knowing that a Christian metal band has been using a very similar phrase for more than two decades.

That's the bizarre intersection of modern pop culture.

Different worlds can suddenly crash into each other.

A Christian metal band from Seattle.

A Korean-inspired animated musical.

Netflix.

AEG Presents.

Trademark lawyers.

K-pop idols.

Demons.

Concerts.

Merchandise.

And me sitting here without Netflix thinking, “Well, apparently I need to write about this.”

I don't know whether I will eventually watch KPop Demon Hunters.

I probably will if I ever find myself with access to it and the opportunity comes along.

And if I do, I'll probably be watching it with a strange perspective.

I'll be thinking about the movie as its own story, because that's what it is.

But I'll also inevitably think about the fact that the words “Demon Hunter” have a history outside of this franchise.

And that history belongs to a band whose music I genuinely enjoy.

That's what makes this whole situation so interesting to me.

It's not simply a lawsuit.

It's a collision between two pieces of popular culture that, on the surface, couldn't be much more different.

One is heavy metal.

One is K-pop.

One is Christian.

One is animated fantasy.

One is a band.

One is a fictional universe.

One has spent more than twenty-five years building its identity.

The other became a worldwide phenomenon in a little over a year.

And somehow, they both ended up hunting demons.

Now they're hunting each other in court.

I have no idea where this lawsuit will ultimately go.

Maybe Demon Hunter wins.

Maybe Netflix wins.

Maybe the parties settle.

Maybe some aspect of the KPop Demon Hunters branding changes while the movie itself remains completely untouched.

Maybe the whole thing becomes a footnote in entertainment-law history.

Whatever happens, I hope people remember that there are actual artists and creative people behind these brands.

And I hope people can talk about the dispute without turning it into another pointless internet war.

Because I can simultaneously say, “Demon Hunter is one of my favorite bands,” and “KPop Demon Hunters sounds like a pretty damn fun movie.”

Those statements aren't contradictory.

I can love “I Am a Stone.”

I can love “I Will Fail You.”

I can be interested in K-pop.

I can enjoy weird genre combinations.

I can think the whole legal situation is fascinating.

And I can still admit that I haven't watched the movie because Netflix costs too much for me to justify subscribing just to see it.

That's my position.

For now, I'll keep listening to Demon Hunter.

I'll keep enjoying the songs that made me a fan in the first place.

And I'll watch this bizarre legal battle unfold from the sidelines.

Who knows?

Maybe one day I'll finally watch KPop Demon Hunters.

But until then, there is something undeniably funny about the fact that one of my favorite bands, Demon Hunter, is now in a real-world battle over a fictional group of demon hunters.

The demons were supposed to be the problem.

Apparently, the trademark lawyers were the real final boss.

I Want the Jaime David Music Blog to Get Out There

2026-08-08T08:05:38.274-07:00

I’ve been thinking about something lately: I really want the Jaime David Music Blog to get out there.

Not just exist.

Not just sit on the internet with a few posts that I occasionally add to.

I actually want people to find it.

That might sound like an obvious thing for someone running a music blog to say, but for me, there’s something bigger behind it. The Jaime David music project has become something that I genuinely care about. I’m not just making a couple of songs and throwing them online. I’m experimenting, writing, recording, creating strange instrumental pieces, working with AI, playing instruments, making sounds in Audacity, and figuring out what kind of musician I want to be.

And I want somewhere to document all of that.

That’s what the Jaime David Music Blog is for.

I want it to become a place where people can follow the journey rather than only seeing the finished product. Because there is a lot that happens before a song becomes a song that somebody else gets to hear.

Sometimes I’m sitting there experimenting with an instrument.

Sometimes I’m recording something completely unconventional.

Sometimes I’m making music out of sounds that probably weren't originally intended to be musical.

Sometimes I’m writing lyrics and then figuring out how those lyrics should actually be performed.

Sometimes I’m using AI as a performer for something I wrote because the song calls for a vocal range or performance that I personally can't provide.

Sometimes I’m making something that sounds completely ridiculous.

And sometimes I accidentally make something I really like.

I want the blog to capture all of that.

I also want people to discover the music itself. The blog isn't separate from the music project. They're connected. The songs are the music, while the blog is where I can talk about the ideas, experiments, stories, and experiences behind them.

I don't expect everybody who finds the blog to suddenly become a fan. That's not realistic. Not everybody is going to like experimental music. Not everybody is going to like AI-assisted music. Not everybody is going to like my songwriting. Not everybody is going to like the weird combinations of genres and sounds that I sometimes come up with.

And that's okay.

I don't need everybody.

I just want the people who do connect with it to have a way to find it.

That's why I've been thinking more about things like RSS feeds and ways of making the blog easier to follow. I recently created a FeedBurner feed for the Jaime David Music Blog so that people who use RSS can subscribe and keep up with new posts.

You can check it out here:

Jaime David Music Blog FeedBurner Feed

I'm also interested in getting the blog connected to more places where people might discover it. Social media, content platforms, search engines, RSS readers, and other corners of the internet all provide different ways for someone to stumble across something they wouldn't have otherwise known existed.

Because that's ultimately what I want.

I want somebody somewhere to stumble across a Jaime David song or blog post and think, "What the hell is this?"

And then maybe they listen.

Maybe they read another post.

Maybe they find another song.

Maybe they disagree with something I said.

Maybe they love something I made.

Maybe they think one of my experiments is completely insane.

Honestly, any of those outcomes are better than nobody ever finding it.

I've never really been interested in creating things just to put them in a drawer.

When I write something, I want it to exist.

When I make a song, I want somebody to have the opportunity to hear it.

When I write about the process, I want somebody to have the opportunity to read it.

And when I put an idea out into the world, I want to give it the chance to reach somebody who might actually need to encounter it.

That's especially important to me because a lot of what I create has meaning behind it. My music isn't always just about making something that sounds good. Sometimes there is a message. Sometimes there is an idea. Sometimes there is frustration. Sometimes there is humor. Sometimes there is compassion. Sometimes there is anger. Sometimes there is an entire philosophical idea hiding underneath a song.

That's part of why I want the blog to grow.

I want the blog to become a record of this whole period of my life where I decided, "You know what? I'm going to make music."

I didn't start out as some established professional musician with a studio, a record deal, years of formal production experience, and a huge audience waiting for my next release.

I'm figuring this out as I go.

And honestly, that's one of the most interesting parts of the story.

I'm learning what works.

I'm learning what doesn't.

I'm learning how to record.

I'm learning how to mix.

I'm learning how different instruments sound.

I'm learning how to turn weird sounds into actual musical ideas.

I'm learning how to work with AI.

I'm learning how to release music.

I'm learning how to promote it.

And I'm learning how to build an audience from essentially the ground up.

The Jaime David Music Blog is part of that process.

So yes, I want it to get out there.

I want more people to know it exists.

I want more people to discover the songs.

I want more people to read the stories.

I want more people to follow the experiments.

I want more people to see what happens when someone decides that they don't necessarily have to follow the traditional rules of how music is supposed to be made.

And maybe that's the most important part.

I'm not trying to pretend that I'm something I'm not.

I'm Jaime David.

I'm making music.

I'm experimenting.

I'm writing.

I'm learning.

I'm creating.

And I'm putting it out into the world.

Now I just have to help the world find it.

So if you've stumbled across this blog, welcome.

If you've been following along for a while, thank you.

And if you want to help this little music project get out there, share a post, share a song, tell somebody about it, subscribe to the RSS feed, or simply keep coming back.

Every person who discovers this project is one more person who gets to see where this weird musical experiment goes.

And I have a feeling I'm only getting started.

Jaime David Music is here. Now let's see how far it can go.

The Beauty of an Album

2026-08-08T07:54:17.814-07:00

There is something special about an album.

In today's world, it is easy to focus on individual songs. Streaming services make it incredibly convenient to jump from one track to another, to shuffle playlists, and to discover new artists one song at a time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that. Some songs become memorable all on their own and leave a lasting impression after only a few minutes.

Albums, however, are different.

An album is not simply a collection of songs.

At least, I do not think it should be.

The best albums feel like journeys. Sometimes they tell obvious stories. Sometimes they do not. Sometimes the songs are connected through themes. Other times they are connected only by the artist's state of mind during the period in which they were created. Every album has its own identity, even when the songs themselves seem very different from one another.

That has become something I have thought about quite a bit recently.

What makes an album memorable?

Is it having one massive hit that everyone remembers decades later?

Is it having every song fit perfectly together?

Is it telling a story from beginning to end?

Or is it something much simpler?

Perhaps an album becomes memorable simply because it captures a particular moment in an artist's creative life.

When I think about many of my favorite albums throughout the years, I often realize they are more than just music. They become snapshots of a particular period in time. You remember where you were when you first heard them. You remember how they made you feel. You remember the songs that stayed with you long after the album ended.

That is something I admire about albums.

Unlike a single song, an album gives an artist room to breathe.

There is room to experiment.

There is room to surprise listeners.

There is room to try ideas that might never work as standalone singles but somehow fit perfectly within the larger project.

An album allows artists to show different sides of themselves.

One song might be energetic.

Another might be thoughtful.

Another might be emotional.

Another might simply exist because the artist wanted to create something different.

That variety is part of what makes albums so fascinating.

No two creative journeys are exactly alike.

Some musicians spend years carefully crafting every song before recording a single note. Others write quickly and capture the energy of the moment. Some create albums that stay comfortably within one musical style. Others enjoy exploring different ideas and seeing where creativity takes them.

Neither approach is inherently better.

They are simply different ways of approaching the same artistic challenge.

The more I have thought about albums, the more I have realized that creating one requires a very different mindset than creating a single song.

A single song asks one question.

An album asks dozens.

How should everything fit together?

How should one song transition into the next?

Should every piece feel connected?

Should there be surprises?

Should there be contrast?

Should there be consistency?

Every creative decision influences the larger experience.

That process fascinates me.

It also reminds me that listeners rarely see everything happening behind the scenes.

An album often represents countless hours of experimentation, revisions, organization, learning, and creative problem-solving before anyone ever hears the finished product.

People often hear the final result.

Artists remember the journey.

There is something beautiful about that.

I also think albums encourage patience.

Not only for the artist, but for the listener.

Some albums reveal everything during the very first listen.

Others become more rewarding over time.

Sometimes your favorite song is not your favorite on the first day you hear it.

Sometimes a track quietly grows on you until months later you realize it has become the one you return to the most.

Albums allow those discoveries to happen naturally.

That sense of discovery is something I greatly appreciate.

It reminds us that art does not always have to reveal itself immediately.

Sometimes mystery is part of the experience.

Sometimes curiosity makes the journey more enjoyable.

Sometimes allowing listeners to discover things on their own creates a much stronger connection than explaining everything beforehand.

I have always believed that creativity should leave room for interpretation.

Artists create.

Listeners discover.

Some people hear one meaning.

Others hear something completely different.

Both experiences can be equally valid.

That is part of what makes music such a unique art form.

It belongs to the artist while it is being created.

It belongs to the listener once it is heard.

Perhaps that is why albums continue to matter, even in an era dominated by playlists and individual tracks.

An album gives artists an opportunity to present a larger vision.

Not necessarily a concept.

Not necessarily a story.

Simply a body of work that represents who they were during a particular chapter of their lives.

I find that idea inspiring.

It reminds me that creative work does not have to fit neatly into expectations.

It simply has to be honest.

As someone who enjoys exploring different forms of creativity, I have developed an even greater appreciation for the amount of thought that goes into creating a full-length musical project.

There is a tremendous amount of work involved.

There is also an incredible amount of excitement.

Every completed step brings the project closer to becoming something people can finally experience.

For now, that journey continues.

There are still ideas taking shape.

There are still creative decisions to make.

There are still moments of experimentation.

There are still surprises waiting for the right time.

And honestly, I think that is one of my favorite parts.

Sometimes it is exciting not because everyone knows what you are creating.

Sometimes it is exciting because they do not.

Sometimes the anticipation becomes part of the story.

Sometimes the best way to introduce a creative project is not by explaining every detail, but simply by letting people know that something meaningful is on the horizon.

When the time is right, the music will speak for itself.

Until then, the journey continues.

My CD Collecting Journey: Apparently, I Need to Check the Damn Cases

2026-08-07T15:03:11.146-07:00

There is something deeply satisfying about collecting physical music in an age when practically every song ever recorded is sitting somewhere on the internet waiting to be streamed. I know I can open Spotify, YouTube, Apple Music, or whatever other service I happen to be using and find an enormous percentage of the music I could possibly want to hear. I know that, technically, I don't need a wall of CDs. I don't need jewel cases taking up space. I don't need to hunt through garage sales, thrift stores, used record shops, flea markets, or online marketplaces looking for old albums. I don't need to spend time wondering whether a particular CD is going to be scratched, whether the case is cracked, whether the booklet is missing, or whether the disc is actually inside the damn case.

And yet, here I am.

I have started collecting CDs.

It wasn't necessarily something I expected to become particularly invested in. For a long time, physical media felt like something that belonged to another era. CDs were everywhere when I was growing up, of course, but streaming eventually became the normal way to listen to music. The idea of physically owning an album became less of a necessity and more of a choice. And honestly, I think that is part of what makes collecting CDs appealing to me now. When I buy a CD, I'm not buying it because I need the music. I'm buying it because I want the physical object. I want the album. I want the artwork. I want the booklet. I want the little plastic case. I want the whole thing.

There is something about having an actual physical representation of music that feels different.

Maybe part of it is nostalgia. Maybe part of it is just the weirdness of collecting things. Maybe it is because music has become so intangible that having something physical feels increasingly special. A streaming library is convenient, but it is also ephemeral. You don't really see the music sitting on your shelf. You don't have a tangible reminder that you own a particular album. You just search for it, press play, and move on.

A CD is different.

A CD sits there.

It exists.

You can pick it up.

You can look at the cover.

You can open it.

You can read the booklet.

You can put the disc into a player and hear the music without needing a streaming subscription, an internet connection, an account, an algorithm, or a company deciding whether the album is still available.

Of course, collecting physical media also means discovering one of the great truths of human existence: people are fucking weird about used CDs.

And that brings me to my recent garage sale adventure.

I found some CDs at a garage sale recently and, naturally, I got excited. Garage sales can be great for this sort of thing because you never quite know what you're going to find. You might find some random obscure album that you have never heard of. You might find something you remember from childhood. You might find a movie soundtrack. You might find an artist you have been meaning to check out. You might find a CD that would cost significantly more online but is sitting on somebody's folding table for a dollar.

And when something is a dollar, my brain apparently stops functioning.

I bought five CDs.

Five.

Not fifty. Not five hundred. Five.

And because they were only a dollar each, I apparently decided that I had entered into some kind of financial risk-free zone where normal purchasing procedures no longer applied.

There was only one tiny problem.

I didn't check whether the CDs were actually inside the cases.

Yes.

I know.

This was my fault.

There is no elaborate conspiracy here. There is no villainous garage-sale proprietor who carefully removed the discs and secretly plotted against me. There isn't even a particularly interesting story behind it.

I simply failed to check.

I saw the CDs. I looked at the cases. I thought, "Oh, cool." I bought them.

And then I got home.

And discovered that four of the five CDs were missing the actual discs.

Four.

Out of five.

I had purchased five CD cases and one CD.

That is an impressively bad ratio.

There is something almost comical about getting home from a garage sale, excited about your new music purchases, opening the cases, and realizing that you've basically bought four empty plastic containers.

At first, I had to laugh.

What else was I going to do?

I mean, technically, I had only spent five dollars. This wasn't some catastrophic financial disaster. I wasn't suddenly going to have to sell my furniture to recover from the loss. I hadn't lost hundreds of dollars. I hadn't been scammed out of my life savings.

But still.

Four out of five.

Come on.

If one of them had been missing, I could have shrugged and thought, "Okay, annoying." Maybe two would have been irritating. But four? At that point, it becomes almost impressive.

I had somehow managed to garage-sale my way into collecting empty CD cases.

And that's when the more practical part of my brain kicked in and reminded me that I actually wanted the music.

The cases weren't enough.

The whole point of collecting CDs is that I want the CDs.

So I started looking online.

And this is where the $5 garage-sale purchase began turning into something considerably more expensive.

Because, naturally, the discs were available on eBay.

Of course they were.

eBay is simultaneously one of the greatest and most dangerous places for a collector. It is incredible when you're looking for something specific. If you need some obscure album from twenty years ago, there is a decent chance that somebody somewhere has listed a copy.

But that convenience comes with a price.

Sometimes literally.

Suddenly, my five-dollar purchase wasn't just a five-dollar purchase anymore. I was now looking for individual discs to put into the cases I had already bought.

This is the kind of thing that probably makes absolutely no sense to somebody who doesn't collect physical media.

They might look at the situation and say, "Why don't you just buy another copy?"

And honestly, that is a perfectly reasonable question.

But when you're collecting, the situation becomes more complicated.

Maybe I already have the original case.

Maybe the case has the artwork.

Maybe the booklet is inside.

Maybe I like having the original physical package.

Maybe I don't want to throw away what I already bought just because the previous owner apparently decided the discs were more useful somewhere else.

Maybe I am simply stubborn.

That last one is probably relevant.

So I started buying the missing discs.

And then the universe decided that I hadn't suffered enough.

One of the discs arrived.

Cracked.

The fucking disc was cracked.

I don't even know how to properly express the level of absurdity involved in this.

Imagine the sequence of events.

I go to a garage sale.

I see five CDs.

I buy them without checking the cases.

Four of the five discs are missing.

I then spend more money online to replace the missing discs.

One of the replacement discs arrives.

And it's fucking cracked.

At that point, all I could really do was stare at it and think:

You have got to be kidding me.

There is a particular kind of frustration that comes from something going wrong immediately after you've tried to fix something that already went wrong.

It's not just the individual problem. It's the accumulation.

First I made the stupid mistake.

Then I discovered the stupid mistake.

Then I spent additional money correcting the stupid mistake.

Then the correction arrived damaged.

It almost felt like the CD universe was personally mocking me.

I had gone from "Hey, cool, I found some cheap CDs!" to "Why am I spending money to assemble these fucking CDs one disc at a time?"

And this is the thing about collecting that nobody really explains when you first get into it.

The object you want is rarely just the object.

There are layers to it.

You want the album.

But maybe you want the original release.

Maybe you want the original artwork.

Maybe you want the booklet.

Maybe you want a particular pressing.

Maybe you want the disc itself to be in good condition.

Maybe you want the case to be intact.

Maybe you want the whole thing to look nice on your shelf.

And suddenly what seemed like a simple purchase becomes a scavenger hunt.

It is almost like archaeology, except instead of digging through the ground, you're digging through eBay listings and garage-sale tables.

And sometimes your archaeological discovery is an empty jewel case.

There is also something strangely funny about the way CDs exist as both music and objects.

The music itself is digital information encoded onto a little plastic disc. But the physical experience surrounding that disc is completely different. The disc has artwork printed on it. The case has a cover. There might be a booklet. There might be liner notes. There might be photographs. There might be lyrics. There might be credits.

When I buy a CD, I'm buying an artifact.

That's what makes the missing-disc problem so irritating.

An empty case isn't really the artifact.

It's part of it.

But it's incomplete.

It's like finding a book with all the pages ripped out.

Or buying a vinyl record sleeve and discovering there is no record.

Or buying a video game case and discovering somebody took the cartridge.

Technically, you own something.

But not the thing you thought you were buying.

And yet, even after this experience, I don't think I'm going to stop collecting CDs.

If anything, the experience has taught me a lesson.

Check the fucking case.

Seriously.

If you're buying a CD at a garage sale, thrift store, flea market, or anywhere else where you can physically inspect it, check the case.

Open it.

Look at the disc.

Make sure the disc is actually there.

Check whether it is cracked.

Check whether it looks like it has been through a wood chipper.

Check whether the case contains a completely unrelated CD.

Check whether there is a burned CD in there instead of the original.

Check everything.

I have now learned this lesson through experience.

And I paid approximately five dollars for the lesson, plus however much I've now spent replacing the missing discs.

Which is still not the worst tuition bill in the world.

But it is certainly an annoying one.

The funny thing is that this experience has actually made me think more about why I like collecting CDs in the first place.

There is a kind of treasure-hunting aspect to it.

When you're shopping for CDs online, you generally know what you're getting. You search for an album, find listings, compare prices, look at pictures, read descriptions, and make a purchase.

Garage sales are different.

You don't know what you're going to find.

You might walk up to a table and see a stack of CDs sitting there for a dollar each.

You might recognize an album immediately.

You might discover something you've never heard of.

You might find something you've been searching for.

You might find something completely ridiculous.

And sometimes you might find four empty cases.

That's part of the adventure, I guess.

There is something wonderfully random about physical-media collecting.

It reminds me of how music discovery used to feel before everything was instantly searchable.

You had to browse.

You had to look.

You had to take chances.

Sometimes you bought an album because you liked the cover.

Sometimes a friend recommended something.

Sometimes you heard one song on the radio.

Sometimes you saw an artist mentioned somewhere and decided to give them a chance.

And sometimes you just picked something up because it was sitting there for a dollar.

I think that's part of why collecting physical music has become appealing to me while I'm also making my own music.

I'm creating songs myself now. I'm experimenting with different sounds, instruments, vocals, AI-generated performances, Audacity-generated tones, and all kinds of strange combinations. I'm building my own little musical world.

And at the same time, I'm becoming more interested in the physical history of music.

There is something almost poetic about those two things happening simultaneously.

On one side, I'm making music in a very modern way.

On the other, I'm collecting an older physical format.

I can sit at my computer and create a bizarre experimental song from tones and sounds, and then I can turn around and put an actual compact disc into a CD player.

The contrast is kind of wonderful.

Music doesn't really have one correct format.

It can be a file.

It can be a streaming link.

It can be a CD.

It can be a vinyl record.

It can be a cassette.

It can be a live performance.

It can be someone humming into their phone.

It can be someone banging on a table with pens and deciding that, yes, that is now percussion.

Music is incredibly adaptable.

Maybe that's part of why collecting CDs feels right to me.

I'm not collecting them because I think streaming is bad.

I'm not collecting them because I believe CDs are somehow objectively superior.

I'm collecting them because I like them.

That's enough.

And despite the garage-sale disaster, I still love the idea of building a collection.

I like imagining what my shelf might eventually look like.

I like seeing albums together.

I like being able to physically pick something out and say, "I want to listen to this."

There is a ritual involved.

You take the CD off the shelf.

You open the case.

You take out the disc.

You put it into the player.

You press play.

And then the album begins.

It's a little more deliberate than opening an app and tapping a song.

Neither experience is inherently better.

They're just different.

Streaming is incredible for discovery and convenience. Physical media is incredible for ownership and connection to an object.

And I think I want both.

I can stream music.

I can make music digitally.

I can distribute music digitally.

I can listen to music digitally.

And I can still collect CDs.

There is no contradiction there.

In fact, I think the contradiction makes it more interesting.

The more music becomes intangible, the more interesting physical music becomes.

When albums were primarily physical objects, owning a CD wasn't particularly unusual.

Now it feels almost ceremonial.

You're choosing to own something that you could otherwise access without owning it.

That's a different relationship with music.

And yes, that relationship apparently includes occasionally buying four empty CD cases at a garage sale.

At least I got one actual disc.

One out of five.

A twenty percent success rate.

That's not exactly a glowing review of my purchasing strategy.

But maybe the real lesson here is that collecting isn't about having a perfect collection.

It's about the process.

It's about the stories attached to the things you collect.

Years from now, I might look at those CDs and remember this ridiculous experience.

I might remember buying them for a dollar each.

I might remember getting home and realizing four were empty.

I might remember searching eBay for replacement discs.

I might remember the moment that one arrived cracked and thinking, "What the fuck?"

And honestly, that makes the CDs more interesting.

They aren't just objects anymore.

They have a story.

That's one of the strange things about collecting.

Eventually, the collection becomes a record of your own life.

You remember where you found something.

You remember who you were with.

You remember how much it cost.

You remember whether it was difficult to find.

You remember whether you almost didn't buy it.

You remember the ridiculous circumstances surrounding the purchase.

And sometimes the story is, "I apparently forgot to check whether the damn CD was actually in the case."

That is now part of my collecting history.

I would certainly prefer that the replacement disc had not arrived cracked.

I would prefer not to spend extra money replacing something I thought I had already bought.

And I would especially prefer not to learn an extremely obvious lesson in the most annoying possible way.

But I suppose this is what happens when you start collecting physical media.

You learn.

You make mistakes.

You find bargains.

You occasionally get burned.

You search online.

You wait for packages.

You open packages.

Sometimes you're thrilled.

Sometimes you're disappointed.

Sometimes you get exactly what you wanted.

And sometimes you open the package and discover that the fucking thing is cracked.

That's the journey.

And I'm still on it.

If anything, this experience has made me more excited to keep looking.

The next time I see a box of CDs at a garage sale, I'm going to approach it differently.

I'm going to pick up the cases.

I'm going to open them.

I'm going to look inside.

I'm going to inspect the discs.

I'm going to make sure the thing I'm paying for actually exists.

And then, assuming everything checks out, I'm going to happily hand over my dollar and walk away with another piece of music history.

Because despite all the frustration, I still love the hunt.

I love finding music.

I love owning music.

I love the weird little artifacts that surround music.

And apparently, I love learning expensive lessons about checking CD cases.

So here's to the collection.

Here's to the garage-sale finds.

Here's to the eBay purchases.

Here's to the scratched discs, cracked cases, missing booklets, mysterious fingerprints, questionable sellers, unexpected treasures, and albums that somehow survive decades of being tossed around.

And most importantly, here's to checking the fucking CD case before you buy it.

Learn from my mistake.

Open the case.

Look inside.

Make sure the disc is there.

Because I have now personally discovered that "five CDs for five dollars" can very quickly turn into "five CD cases for five dollars, followed by a completely unnecessary eBay shopping spree."

And apparently, that is how my CD collecting journey continues.

One disc at a time.

When “Ghost” Became More Than a Song: How Music, Loss, and Memories Found Me Through Justin Bieber

2026-08-02T08:42:20.254-07:00

There are certain songs that are more than just songs. They are not simply melodies, lyrics, or a collection of instruments arranged in a certain way. Sometimes a song becomes a time capsule. Sometimes it becomes a doorway back to a moment, a person, or a feeling that you thought you had buried deep inside yourself. Sometimes a song finds a part of you that you did not even realize was still hurting.

For me, that song is “Ghost” by Justin Bieber.

Before I talk about why this song means so much to me, I have to talk about something that changed the way I experience music forever: losing someone I loved.

In 2019, my uncle passed away. At the time, I did not fully understand how much that loss would affect me. I had experienced sadness before. I had experienced disappointment, stress, and difficult moments in life. But this was different. This was the first major loss that truly shook me. This was the first time someone important to me was gone, and there was no fixing it, no going back, no waiting for things to return to normal.

Death has a strange way of changing how you see the world.

Before losing someone close, you can understand grief intellectually. You know what it means when someone says they miss somebody. You know what it means when someone says a song reminds them of someone they lost. You can empathize. You can imagine what it must feel like.

But there is a difference between understanding something and experiencing it.

Before 2019, I would see artists crying while performing songs on stage. I would see musicians break down while singing about personal experiences, loved ones, or painful memories. I always understood that it was emotional. I understood that music could be powerful. But there was still a part of me that wondered what it actually felt like to become so overwhelmed by a song that you could barely perform it.

I understood it from the outside.

I did not understand it from the inside.

Then my uncle died.

And suddenly, the meaning of certain songs changed.

The interesting thing is that “Ghost” did not even exist yet. When I lost my uncle in 2019, that song was still years away from being released. I had no idea that in 2021, a song would come out that would capture a feeling I had been carrying for years.

Then Justin Bieber released “Ghost.”

And something about it hit me immediately.

Now, I have to admit something: I was never really a huge Justin Bieber fan.

In fact, during his early years, I was one of those people who did not really enjoy his music. When he first became famous, I viewed his songs as typical mainstream pop. To me, it felt like the kind of music that was everywhere, playing constantly on the radio, and I personally did not connect with it. I thought it was generic pop music. I did not understand why everyone was so obsessed.

Obviously, artists change. People change. Music changes.

And sometimes an artist creates something that reaches people who never expected to connect with them.

That is what happened with “Ghost.”

The first time I heard the song, something immediately felt different. It was not just another pop song. It was not just another catchy chorus. There was a sense of longing, sadness, and love underneath the lyrics. It felt like a song about holding onto someone who is no longer physically there.

Then I watched the music video.

That was when everything really hit me.

The music video is about memories, family, love, and the pain of losing someone. Watching it brought back emotions I thought I had already processed. It reminded me of my uncle. It reminded me of what it feels like when someone important is no longer around. It reminded me of the strange feeling of continuing life while carrying memories of someone who cannot experience those moments with you anymore.

And I started crying.

Not just because the song was sad.

Because it was familiar.

It felt like someone had taken a feeling I had struggled to explain and turned it into music.

That is the power of art.

Sometimes the artist is not creating something specifically about your life, but somehow it feels like they are telling your story anyway.

“Ghost” was not written about my uncle. Justin Bieber did not know my personal experiences. The song was not created with my memories in mind. But somehow, through the combination of the lyrics, the melody, the emotion in the performance, and the imagery in the music video, it connected to something personal inside me.

That is what makes music incredible.

A song can belong to the person who created it and still become something completely different to the person listening.

Recently, as I have been practicing saxophone, I have found myself returning to this song again and again. There is something about playing an instrument that makes music feel even more personal. When you are not just listening, but physically creating the sound yourself, the emotion becomes different.

You breathe into the instrument.

You control the notes.

You feel the vibrations.

And sometimes, unexpectedly, those emotions come rushing back.

Practicing “Ghost” on saxophone has brought me to tears.

And honestly, that surprised me.

I always knew music could be emotional. I always knew certain songs could make people cry. But experiencing it myself while playing made me finally understand those performers I used to see breaking down on stage.

It is not just sadness.

It is memory.

It is love.

It is missing someone.

It is feeling connected to someone who is no longer physically here.

When an artist cries during a performance, sometimes people watching might think, “Why are they crying? They have performed this song so many times.”

But that is the thing.

Sometimes performing a song hundreds of times does not make it less emotional. Sometimes it makes it more emotional because the artist has lived with those words and melodies. Every performance can bring back the original emotions that inspired the song.

And listeners experience something similar.

A song becomes attached to moments in our lives.

A song can become attached to a person.

A song can become attached to a memory.

That is why hearing certain songs years later can instantly transport you back to a specific place or time. It is almost like your brain stored that song alongside the emotions you were feeling.

For me, “Ghost” became connected to my uncle.

It became connected to grief.

It became connected to the realization that even though someone is gone, their impact remains.

The title itself carries a powerful meaning. A ghost is something that is no longer physically present but still exists in some way. It is a memory. It is an echo. It is something from the past that continues to influence the present.

That is exactly how losing someone feels.

The person is gone, but the love is still there.

The memories are still there.

The lessons are still there.

The moments you shared are still there.

People sometimes talk about moving on after someone dies, but I think that phrase can be misunderstood. Moving on does not mean forgetting. It does not mean leaving someone behind. It means learning how to carry their memory with you as you continue living.

Songs like “Ghost” remind me of that.

They remind me that grief is not something that simply disappears. It changes over time. Sometimes it becomes quieter. Sometimes it returns unexpectedly through a song, a photograph, a smell, a place, or a random memory.

And when it returns, sometimes the healthiest thing you can do is let yourself feel it.

Let yourself cry.

Let yourself remember.

Let yourself acknowledge that someone mattered.

I think that is why this song affected me so much. It was not just because it was a beautiful song. It was because it arrived at a point in my life when I finally understood what those emotional performances were about.

Before my uncle died, I understood grief as an idea.

After my uncle died, I understood grief as an experience.

And after hearing “Ghost,” I understood how music can become a bridge between those two things.

A song can take something painful and make it beautiful.

A song can take a memory and give it a voice.

A song can make someone feel less alone.

That is why I have so much respect for artists who can create music that reaches people on such a deep level. Whether it is a massive pop artist like Justin Bieber or a small independent musician recording songs in their bedroom, the goal is often the same: to communicate something human.

And grief is one of the most human experiences there is.

Everyone eventually loses someone.

Everyone eventually has a memory they wish they could revisit.

Everyone eventually has a moment where they wish they could talk to someone who is no longer there.

Music gives us a way to process those feelings.

For me, “Ghost” is a reminder of my uncle. It is a reminder of love, loss, and the strange way people continue to exist in our lives even after they are gone.

It is a reminder that a song does not have to be written about you to be meaningful to you.

It just has to find something inside you.

And sometimes, when the right song finds the right person at the right moment, it can become something much bigger than music.

It can become a memory.

It can become a tribute.

It can become a connection between the past and the present.

“Ghost” became that for me.

A song I never expected to love from an artist I never expected to connect with.

A song that made me finally understand why musicians cry when they perform.

A song that reminds me that even though people may leave this world, the love they gave us does not disappear.

Sometimes it stays with us forever.

Sometimes it comes back through a melody.

Sometimes it comes back as a ghost.

Growing Up Around a Family That Loved Collecting Music

2026-07-26T07:48:28.680-07:00

One of the reasons I think I have developed such an appreciation for collecting physical music is because I grew up around people who have been doing it for years. Long before streaming services became the dominant way people listened to music, buying albums was simply how you experienced new releases. If you wanted to hear your favorite artist whenever you wanted, you bought the album. That mindset has never really disappeared in my family, and looking back, I think it quietly influenced my own interest in building a collection.

These days, almost any song you can think of is available through a streaming service. That convenience is incredible, and I use it all the time. But there is still something special about walking over to a shelf filled with CDs, picking out an album, and knowing it is part of your family's collection. It feels personal in a way that scrolling through a digital library sometimes does not.

My family has accumulated quite a collection over the years. It was never really about trying to own the biggest music library possible or chasing rare collector's items. Instead, it happened naturally. Whenever someone found an artist they really enjoyed, they would eventually pick up one of their albums. Then another. Then another. Over time, those individual purchases turned into shelves filled with music.

Looking through the collection is almost like taking a journey through different generations of musical tastes. Every artist represents a different period of someone's life. Some albums were bought when they were brand new. Others were discovered years after their original release. Some were gifts during birthdays or holidays, while others were picked up simply because someone happened to be browsing a store and found an album they wanted.

I think that is one of the things I appreciate most about physical collections.

They grow organically.

Unlike digital libraries that can suddenly gain hundreds of albums in just a few minutes, physical collections tend to build slowly over years or even decades. Every album has a reason for being there. Someone chose it. Someone wanted it enough to bring it home. Every case on the shelf represents an individual decision.

That gives the collection personality.

Growing up, I always thought it was normal to see shelves filled with CDs. At the time, I never really stopped to think about it because it was simply how music was stored. If you wanted to listen to something, you found the album, opened the case, put the CD into the player, and pressed play. That was just part of everyday life.

Now that streaming has become the norm, those shelves almost feel like a time capsule.

They represent decades of musical history sitting in one place.

One thing I have always found fascinating is how diverse my family's collection is. It is not limited to one genre or one era. Different people naturally enjoy different styles of music, and over time that variety became reflected throughout the collection itself. Instead of seeing the same type of artist repeated over and over, you find a mixture of rock, pop, alternative, hip-hop, classic artists, newer artists, and everything in between.

I actually like that.

Music should be diverse.

Our moods change.

Our interests change.

Our lives change.

It makes sense that our music libraries would change right along with us.

As I have started building my own collection, I have noticed that I am following a similar philosophy. I am not trying to collect only one genre or only one particular type of artist. I simply want to collect music that I genuinely enjoy listening to.

That feels much more meaningful than collecting simply for the sake of collecting.

I also appreciate the visual aspect of physical music.

There is something satisfying about seeing rows of albums lined up on a shelf. Every spine represents another artist, another album, another memory waiting to be revisited. Album artwork itself is a form of art that deserves appreciation. Designers, photographers, illustrators, and musicians all work together to create an image that reflects the music inside. When you display physical albums together, it almost becomes a miniature art gallery dedicated to music.

Streaming services obviously display album covers as well, but it is not quite the same experience.

Holding an album in your hands makes it feel more personal.

Another thing I admire about my family's collection is how durable it has been. Some of those CDs have been around for years and still play perfectly. Despite all the changes in technology, they continue working exactly as they did when they were first purchased.

That says something about physical media.

People often assume that newer automatically means better, but I do not think that is always true. Streaming offers incredible convenience, but physical media offers permanence. Once you own an album, it is yours. It does not disappear because of licensing agreements or changes to a streaming catalog. It remains part of your collection for as long as you choose to keep it.

I think there is real value in that.

Growing up around a physical music collection also taught me something else.

Albums matter.

Today, playlists are incredibly popular, and I enjoy them too. They are great for discovering artists or listening during specific activities. But albums tell complete stories. Artists carefully arrange songs into a specific order. The opening track introduces the experience. The middle tracks develop ideas and emotions. The final song often leaves the listener with something memorable to think about.

Listening to a complete album feels different than hearing individual songs shuffled together.

That is something I have come to appreciate more and more over the years.

As someone who has recently begun creating my own music, I think I understand that even better now. Every release represents countless hours of creativity, practice, recording, editing, and planning. Seeing my family's collection reminds me that every album sitting on those shelves represents someone's hard work and artistic vision.

That makes me appreciate every CD even more.

It is also interesting to think about how collecting habits evolve over time. Years ago, buying physical music was simply what everyone did. Today, collecting has become more of a hobby than a necessity. That actually makes it feel even more special. People who collect physical media today usually do so because they genuinely enjoy it, not because it is the only option available.

There is something refreshing about that.

It means every new addition to a collection is a deliberate choice.

As I continue building my own collection, I know I probably inherited some of that appreciation from my family. Watching shelves gradually fill with albums over the years showed me that collections are not built overnight. They grow naturally, one purchase at a time, reflecting the interests, memories, and personalities of the people building them.

There is no finish line.

No requirement to own thousands of albums.

No pressure to collect every release from every artist.

Just buy the music you love.

I think that is the best advice anyone can give to a new collector.

Your collection should tell your story.

When someone looks at your shelf years from now, they should be able to get a sense of who you are simply by seeing the artists you chose to bring home.

That is what makes physical collections meaningful.

They become personal.

They become memories.

They become little snapshots of different moments throughout life.

Looking at my family's collection reminds me that music is more than entertainment. It is part of our lives. It becomes attached to birthdays, road trips, holidays, celebrations, difficult times, and everyday moments that somehow become unforgettable because of the songs playing in the background.

I am grateful that I grew up around people who appreciated physical music. Without realizing it, they showed me that collecting albums is about more than simply owning CDs. It is about preserving memories, supporting artists, appreciating creativity, and building something that reflects your own journey through life.

Now, as I slowly build my own shelf of favorite artists, I like to think I am continuing a tradition that started long before I ever bought my first CD. My collection may still be growing, but it already represents the artists who have helped shape my own musical journey, and I look forward to adding many more albums in the years ahead.

Why I Still Love Collecting Music in the Streaming Era

2026-07-26T07:47:54.999-07:00

Music has always been one of the most important forms of art in my life. It has been there during moments of happiness, times of stress, creative breakthroughs, long drives, quiet evenings, and everything in between. Some songs instantly bring back memories from years ago, while others become the soundtrack to entirely new chapters of life. That is one of the things I find most fascinating about music. It has an incredible ability to stay with us, even as everything else around us changes.

Like most people today, I stream a lot of music. It is hard to deny just how convenient streaming has become. With just a few taps or clicks, I can listen to millions of songs from artists all over the world. If I suddenly remember a band I have not heard in years, chances are I can find them almost instantly. Streaming has made discovering new artists easier than ever before, and I am grateful for that.

At the same time, though, I have found myself becoming more interested in something that has existed long before streaming services ever arrived.

Collecting physical music.

For me, there is something special about owning an album. It feels different than simply adding another song to a playlist. A CD is something tangible. You can hold it, display it on a shelf, admire the artwork, flip through the booklet, read the lyrics and production credits, and appreciate all the effort that went into creating the final product. It feels like owning a small piece of music history.

Maybe that sounds nostalgic, but I honestly think physical media still has a place in today's world.

When I first started collecting CDs, I was not trying to build some massive archive overnight. I simply wanted to own albums from artists whose music had become meaningful to me over the years. I wasn't interested in buying albums just for the sake of having more CDs on my shelf. Instead, I wanted my collection to reflect my own musical journey.

That is what collecting means to me.

Every album represents an artist whose music has been part of my life in one way or another.

Naturally, my collection began with Blue October.

Anyone who has followed my writing for a while probably already knows how much I appreciate their music. Blue October has been one of those bands that I continue coming back to again and again. Their songs are emotional, honest, vulnerable, hopeful, and deeply personal. Whether I need something uplifting or something reflective, there always seems to be a Blue October song that fits the moment. It only made sense for them to be the foundation of my collection.

Once I started collecting, though, it became obvious that I wanted to expand beyond just one band.

Music is simply too diverse to limit yourself to a single artist.

Slowly, I began adding more bands and musicians that have been important to me throughout different stages of my life.

Alter Bridge was one of the first additions. Their combination of incredible musicianship, powerful vocals, memorable guitar work, and emotional songwriting has always impressed me. They have a sound that is both heavy and melodic, something I have always enjoyed listening to.

Then came Linkin Park.

Few bands have influenced modern rock the way Linkin Park did. Their ability to blend rock, electronic music, hip-hop, and emotional lyrics into something completely unique made them one of the defining bands of an entire generation. Their music still feels just as relevant today as it did years ago, and I expect it will continue connecting with listeners for many years to come.

Evanescence also earned a place in my growing collection. Their music combines haunting melodies with heavy instrumentation and orchestral influences in a way that very few bands have successfully replicated. Amy Lee's voice remains one of the most recognizable voices in rock music, and every album showcases just how talented the band truly is.

Green Day was another obvious addition.

They have spent decades creating energetic punk rock that somehow manages to be both fun and meaningful at the same time. Their music has evolved over the years while still maintaining the identity that made them one of the biggest rock bands in the world. Whether someone discovered them in the 1990s, the 2000s, or more recently, there is a good chance they have heard at least a few Green Day songs along the way.

Then there is Eminem.

Even people who are not huge hip-hop fans usually recognize his incredible lyrical ability. His storytelling, wordplay, technical skill, and willingness to tackle difficult subjects have made him one of the most influential rappers of all time. Every time I listen to his music, I find myself noticing new details that I somehow missed before.

Jay-Z became another important addition to my collection. His influence extends far beyond individual songs. Over the course of his career, he has become one of the defining voices in hip-hop, constantly evolving while helping shape the genre itself. His albums represent decades of creativity, ambition, and consistency.

Story of the Year is another band that I have always enjoyed. Their energetic style, emotional performances, and memorable songs fit perfectly alongside many of the other artists in my collection. They bring another flavor of rock that I continue enjoying every time I revisit their music.

Finally, My Chemical Romance became another addition to my shelf.

Their music was unlike almost anything else when they first emerged. They combined theatrical storytelling with powerful rock music, creating albums that felt like complete experiences rather than simply collections of songs. Their creativity and willingness to embrace dramatic concepts helped make them one of the most recognizable bands of their era.

Looking across my collection, one thing immediately stands out.

None of these artists sound exactly alike.

That is intentional.

I have never believed that people should limit themselves to one genre of music.

Some days I want to listen to alternative rock.

Other days I feel like listening to punk.

Sometimes hip-hop is exactly what I am in the mood for.

Other times I just want something emotional, energetic, relaxing, or completely unexpected.

Music reflects our emotions, and our emotions constantly change. It only makes sense that our playlists and collections would reflect that variety.

One of the things I enjoy most about collecting music is that there are no real rules.

Some collectors focus exclusively on vinyl records.

Others collect cassette tapes.

Some only buy limited editions or rare imports.

Others collect every album from a single artist.

Some people own thousands of CDs covering dozens of genres.

None of those approaches are wrong.

For me, I simply want to collect the music I genuinely enjoy listening to.

That is my philosophy.

I do not care about owning albums just because someone tells me they are essential.

I am not trying to impress other collectors.

I am not trying to own every album ever made.

I simply want my shelf to represent the artists that have become part of my own life.

I think that makes collecting much more enjoyable.

Every time I add another CD, it feels intentional.

Instead of buying music simply because it is popular, I am choosing albums that I know I will continue listening to for years.

That also means I expect my collection to keep growing over time.

There are plenty of artists I enjoy that I have not added yet. As I continue discovering new music and revisiting older favorites, I know more albums will eventually find their way onto my shelf.

There is no deadline.

There is no finish line.

Music collecting is one of those hobbies that naturally grows over time.

Another reason I enjoy physical albums is because they encourage me to experience music differently.

Streaming often encourages skipping around between songs. We jump from one artist to another, shuffle playlists, and rarely listen to complete albums from beginning to end.

Owning the physical album encourages a different mindset.

Instead of asking, "What song do I want to hear?"

I find myself asking, "What album do I want to experience today?"

That simple shift changes everything.

Albums are carefully assembled by artists. The opening track introduces the listener to the project. Songs build upon each other. Themes develop. Emotions change. By the time you reach the final track, you often feel like you have completed an entire journey.

That is something I have come to appreciate much more as my collection grows.

As someone who has recently started creating my own music, I think I appreciate albums even more now than I did before. Even creating a single song gave me a much greater appreciation for everything musicians do behind the scenes. Writing, recording, editing, mixing, mastering, designing artwork, planning releases, and countless other tasks all come together to create one finished project.

Listening to music is enjoyable.

Creating music is challenging.

Owning physical albums reminds me of the incredible amount of work that artists invest into every release.

I also enjoy simply looking at my collection.

Album artwork has always fascinated me.

A great cover can become just as iconic as the music itself. Sometimes the artwork perfectly captures the feeling of the album before you even hear the first note. Other times it becomes instantly recognizable years later simply because of how closely it is connected with the music inside.

A shelf full of albums almost becomes a miniature art gallery.

Every cover tells part of a story.

As my collection continues growing, I know it will also become something of a timeline.

Years from now, I will probably remember exactly when I added certain artists.

I will remember where I was in life.

I will remember what songs I had on repeat.

I will remember the projects I was working on.

Music has an incredible way of preserving memories that few other things can.

That is another reason I enjoy collecting.

It is not just about owning music.

It is about preserving moments.

In a world where so much entertainment exists only digitally, there is something refreshing about owning something you can actually hold in your hands.

Will I continue using streaming services?

Absolutely.

Streaming is convenient, and I have no intention of giving it up.

But I also plan to continue building my CD collection one album at a time.

For me, the two experiences complement each other perfectly.

Streaming helps me discover new artists.

Collecting helps me celebrate the artists whose music has already become part of my life.

At the end of the day, I do not collect CDs because I have to.

I collect them because I genuinely enjoy music.

I enjoy supporting artists whose work has inspired me.

I enjoy looking at the artwork.

I enjoy experiencing albums the way they were meant to be heard.

Most of all, I enjoy building a collection that reflects who I am.

Whether it is Blue October, Alter Bridge, Linkin Park, Evanescence, Green Day, Eminem, Jay-Z, Story of the Year, My Chemical Romance, or whatever artists I discover in the future, I look forward to continuing this journey one album at a time.

Because in the end, the best music collection is not necessarily the biggest one.

It is the one that tells your story.

When the Music Stops: D4VD, the Pretrial Process, and Why We Have to Talk About This Carefully

2026-07-26T07:33:02.193-07:00

There are certain stories that a music blog doesn't want to write about, not because they aren't newsworthy, but because they sit so far outside the realm of album reviews and tour announcements that it feels strange to even type the words. The ongoing case against David Anthony Burke, known to millions of fans as D4VD, is one of those stories. It is not a story about a new single or a surprise deluxe edition. It is a story about a teenage girl named Celeste Rivas Hernandez, about a preliminary hearing unfolding in a Los Angeles courtroom, and about an industry, a fanbase, and a public that are all trying to figure out how to process something this heavy while the legal process is still very much in motion.

We are writing about this because it would be strange not to. D4VD built a real career, a genuine one, off of songs that resonated with a young, emotionally raw, and largely online audience. He wasn't a manufactured pop product pushed by a label machine, he was a bedroom musician who found an audience organically, the kind of story that music blogs like ours love to cover because it feels human and unscripted. That same audience, the one that grew up on his music, is now watching him face first-degree murder charges, along with additional charges connected to alleged sexual conduct with a minor and the alleged mutilation of a body. That is an enormous, disorienting gap to sit with, and pretending it isn't happening, or that it has nothing to do with music coverage, would be dishonest.

So let's talk about where things actually stand, because a lot of people online are talking about this case with far more certainty than the legal process currently allows. As of this point in the summer of 2026, D4VD has not been convicted of anything. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges against him. What is currently happening in court is a preliminary hearing, which is a specific legal step that exists before a case ever goes to a full trial. A preliminary hearing is not a trial itself. It is a proceeding where a judge listens to evidence and testimony presented by prosecutors, and decides whether there is enough of it to establish probable cause, meaning enough to justify sending the case forward to trial. It is a lower bar than the standard of proof used at an actual trial, which is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. That distinction matters enormously, and it's one that gets lost constantly in social media conversation, where a headline about graphic testimony gets treated as if it were already a guilty verdict.

This is the part of the conversation where we have to be honest about something uncomfortable: the presumption of innocence is not a technicality, and it is not a shield that only exists to protect people we like. It is a foundational principle of how the legal system is supposed to work, precisely because it has to apply evenly, even to people accused of something this disturbing, even to people whose music we have personally enjoyed, even to people the internet has already decided are guilty based on a few viral clips of courtroom testimony. Saying "innocent until proven guilty" is not the same as saying "nothing happened here" or "let's ignore the victim." It is simply a recognition that the legal process exists specifically because facts have to be tested, evidence has to be challenged, and a jury or a judge, not a comment section, is the body that gets to make that determination. That is true no matter how compelling or how disturbing the details reported from the courtroom might sound.

And the details that have come out during this preliminary hearing are, by any measure, deeply disturbing. Prosecutors have laid out an extensive narrative involving alleged forensic evidence, digital records, testimony from law enforcement, and allegations regarding the nature of the relationship between Burke and Rivas Hernandez, who was fourteen years old at the time her remains were discovered inside a vehicle registered in his name. These are not small allegations. They are about as serious as allegations get, both legally and morally. It would be irresponsible for us to pretend that the weight of what has been presented in court so far doesn't matter, or to treat this as some minor legal formality that will simply resolve itself quietly. It won't. This is a capital-adjacent case involving the death of a child, and the public attention it has drawn is proportionate to how serious those allegations are.

At the same time, we want to be careful here, because there is a difference between acknowledging the seriousness of allegations and asserting as fact things that have not yet been established through a completed legal process. We don't know, with the kind of certainty that would let anyone write a definitive account, exactly what happened to Celeste Rivas Hernandez. We can look at what prosecutors have presented and form impressions, the way any person following news coverage naturally does, and it is human and understandable to feel a strong reaction to the images and testimony that have been described in reporting from this hearing. But forming an impression is not the same as knowing. The evidence presented by one side in a preliminary hearing is, by design, only one side of the story. The defense has not yet fully presented its case, cross-examination is ongoing, and a full trial, if this moves forward to one, would involve a much more complete airing of evidence from both sides. So while we can, and probably should, sit with the discomfort of what's been alleged, we should hold off on writing the ending of this story before the legal system has actually reached one.

What we can say clearly, without any hesitation or hedging, is that Celeste Rivas Hernandez was a real person. She was fourteen years old. She had a family who has shown up to this hearing, who has sat through testimony that no parent should ever have to hear about their child, and who is grieving a loss that the rest of us are only observing from a distance, mostly through headlines and social media posts. It is easy, in true crime culture and in the endless churn of internet commentary, to let a victim become a footnote in a story that ends up centering the accused, the celebrity, the "shocking twist," the drama of the case. We don't want to do that here. Whatever else this case is about, whatever legal arguments get made, whatever public narrative forms around D4VD as an artist, this began with the loss of a young girl's life, and that loss deserves to stay at the center of how we talk about this, not get pushed to the margins in favor of talking about what this means for someone's music career or public image.

Now, here's the part of this piece that we think is actually the most important thing to say, and it's the reason we wanted to write this at all instead of just staying quiet and letting the news cycle run its course without any input from us. As this case continues, and especially if it moves forward to a full trial, there is a real chance that public anger, which is a completely understandable emotional response to what's being alleged, starts to spill over in ways that cause harm to people who are not on trial. We've seen this pattern before in other high-profile cases involving public figures. Family members get doxxed. Defense attorneys get harassed simply for doing their jobs, which, as a reminder, everyone accused of a crime is constitutionally entitled to have someone do. Witnesses get targeted online. People only tangentially connected to a case, sometimes people with no real connection at all beyond sharing a last name or having once been photographed near the defendant, become targets of internet mobs who have decided that anger needs somewhere to go and any nearby target will do.

We want to say, as plainly as we can, that this would be a mistake, and not just a strategic one, but a moral one. Everyone involved in this case, on every side of it, is a human being. That includes the family and friends of D4VD, who did not choose this situation and who are presumably going through something genuinely awful themselves, regardless of what ultimately gets proven in court. It includes members of his professional team, his label, his collaborators, people who worked with him as a musician and who had no way of knowing what was happening in his personal life, if the allegations turn out to be true. It includes attorneys, court staff, and witnesses, who are simply performing roles that the legal system requires someone to fill. None of these people are on trial. None of these people should be treated as though they are guilty by association, and none of them deserve to have their safety or their peace threatened because the internet is angry and looking for an outlet.

To be extremely clear about something, because this is the kind of point that gets misread if it isn't stated directly: none of this is an argument for looking away from accountability. If the allegations against D4VD are proven true through the legal process, that is an extraordinarily serious matter, and accountability in that circumstance is not just appropriate, it is necessary. Nothing about urging people to avoid harassment is the same as urging people to excuse or minimize what's being alleged. Those are two entirely separate conversations, and collapsing them into one, as though caring about due process means you don't care about the victim, or as though wanting people to avoid vigilante harassment means you're defending the accused, is a false choice that doesn't actually reflect how any of this works. You can hold both of these truths at once. You can believe that serious allegations deserve serious scrutiny and, if proven, serious consequences, and you can also believe that people not charged with any crime don't deserve to have their lives upended by strangers online who have decided to act as judge and jury before either institution has finished its work.

This matters specifically in a case like this one because of how much attention D4VD's music has received, and because of how parasocial fan culture tends to work in the internet age. Fans who feel personally betrayed by an artist they connected with often respond with intensity that goes far beyond typical disappointment, and that intensity doesn't always stay contained to the person who is actually accused. It spreads outward. It attaches itself to anyone even loosely connected. And in cases involving allegations this serious, particularly ones involving harm to a child, the emotional charge behind that anger is completely understandable, even righteous in a certain sense, but understandable anger still needs somewhere responsible to go, and harassing bystanders isn't it.

There's also something worth saying about how we, as consumers of news and social media, engage with cases like this one in the first place. It is very easy to treat an unfolding criminal case as a form of entertainment, something to follow the way you'd follow a television drama, complete with plot twists and cliffhangers and hot takes. Court TV clips get shared for their shock value. Screenshots of testimony get turned into memes or reaction content. That impulse is worth resisting, not because we shouldn't be informed or shouldn't care, but because treating a real child's death and a real ongoing legal proceeding as content flattens something that shouldn't be flattened. There's a difference between staying informed about a serious matter and consuming it the way you'd consume a plot twist in a streaming series. We'd encourage anyone following this story to keep that distinction in mind, for their own sake as much as anyone else's.

So where does that leave a blog like ours, one that exists to talk about music, in relation to a story like this? Honestly, in an uncomfortable place, and we're not going to pretend otherwise. D4VD's music will likely always carry the shadow of this case now, regardless of how the legal process resolves, and that's simply the reality of what's happened. We're not going to tell readers how they should feel about listening to his songs going forward, because that's a genuinely personal decision that depends on values, on comfort levels, and on how each individual person processes difficult information about artists they've connected with. What we can do is commit to covering the factual, verified developments in this case as they happen, without speculation dressed up as certainty, without treating unproven allegations as settled fact, and without losing sight of the fact that a real young girl lost her life and that her family is living through something none of us would wish on anyone.

As the preliminary hearing continues, and as this case likely moves toward a decision on whether it proceeds to a full trial, we'll keep watching, the way a lot of people will. We'd just ask, for whatever it's worth coming from a small music blog, that everyone following along try to hold onto a little bit of restraint. Let the legal process do what it's designed to do. Direct anger, if you feel it, toward accountability through that process rather than toward strangers online who happen to share a connection to someone accused of something terrible. Keep Celeste Rivas Hernandez, a real person who deserved a full life, at the center of how this story gets told. And remember that everyone caught up in the orbit of a case this large, whether they're a family member, a bystander, or simply someone who once worked on a song, is still a person too, one who deserves basic decency even when the situation surrounding them is anything but decent.

That's really the whole point of this piece. Not to defend anyone. Not to accuse anyone beyond what's already been alleged in court. Just a reminder, from us to you, that it's possible to take something this serious seriously, without losing our own humanity in the process.

How I Created My Debut Song, "Lotsa Tones"

2026-07-22T02:40:25.088-07:00

When people think about creating music, they often picture expensive studios, professional instruments, and years of formal musical training. While there is certainly nothing wrong with that approach, it isn't how Lotsa Tones came to be.

Instead, this song began with something much simpler.

Curiosity.

I've always believed that creativity starts by asking one simple question: What happens if I try this?

That question has led me to write novels, poetry, short stories, blog posts, podcast episodes, and now, my first piece of music. Every creative journey I've taken has started the same way. Not because I already knew exactly what I was doing, but because I wanted to learn.

That mindset is exactly what led to Lotsa Tones.

For this project, I wasn't trying to create the next chart-topping hit. I wasn't trying to perfectly imitate another artist or fit neatly into an existing genre. Instead, I wanted to experiment with sound itself.

The tool that made this possible was Audacity.

Most people know Audacity as a free audio editor. It's often used for recording podcasts, editing interviews, cleaning up audio, or mixing tracks. I've used it extensively for editing episodes of The Jaime David Podcast, so I was already comfortable navigating the software.

But one day I started wondering...

What if I used Audacity for something completely different?

Instead of simply editing audio that already existed, what if I tried creating music from the sounds built into the software?

That question became the beginning of this project.

I started opening different generators and effects inside Audacity just to see what they could do. I generated tones. I listened to different waveforms. I experimented with pitches, frequencies, durations, and rhythms.

Some combinations sounded interesting.

Others sounded completely ridiculous.

Some lasted only a few seconds before I immediately deleted them.

But every experiment taught me something.

One of the things I enjoy most about creative work is that there isn't always a right answer. Sometimes the only way to discover something interesting is to allow yourself to make things that don't work.

In fact, I would argue that failed experiments are often just as valuable as successful ones because they teach you what directions you may or may not want to explore next.

So I kept experimenting.

I'd generate a sound.

Listen.

Move it around.

Layer another sound over it.

Adjust the timing.

Delete something.

Add something else.

Repeat.

Little by little, what started as random experimentation slowly became recognizable as a piece of music.

I never sat down with a detailed blueprint saying, "This is exactly how the song will sound."

Instead, I let the song develop naturally.

One sound inspired another.

One rhythm suggested the next.

Every decision influenced the one that followed.

That process reminded me a lot of writing fiction.

When I write a novel, I don't always know exactly where every chapter will lead. Sometimes the characters surprise me. Sometimes the story changes direction halfway through writing it.

Music, I discovered, can work the same way.

Rather than forcing every idea into place, I tried listening to what the piece itself seemed to need.

Sometimes it needed another layer.

Sometimes it needed less.

Sometimes the silence between sounds became just as important as the sounds themselves.

That was an interesting lesson.

As creators, we often feel the need to constantly add more.

More notes.

More instruments.

More effects.

More complexity.

But complexity isn't always better.

Sometimes restraint creates something stronger.

One of my goals throughout the project was simply to stay curious.

If I wondered what two sounds might be like together, I tried it.

If I wanted to hear what happened when I adjusted the timing, I adjusted it.

If I thought an effect might completely change the mood, I clicked the button and found out.

Not every experiment survived the final version.

Many didn't.

Some sounded awkward.

Some became too cluttered.

Others just didn't fit.

That's completely normal.

Creativity often involves making dozens—or even hundreds—of decisions that nobody ever sees.

The final product is only one snapshot of a much larger creative process.

What listeners hear in Lotsa Tones is the result of countless little moments of experimentation.

Some lasted seconds.

Some lasted hours.

All of them helped shape the final piece.

One thing I particularly enjoyed was discovering just how much can be created using simple building blocks.

People sometimes assume that creativity depends on having the newest software, the most expensive equipment, or an endless collection of tools.

While those things can certainly expand your possibilities, they aren't what create ideas.

Ideas come from curiosity.

Tools simply help bring those ideas into reality.

Audacity became that tool for me.

It allowed me to explore without feeling intimidated.

Because I wasn't working inside software filled with thousands of virtual instruments and endless menus, I focused more on listening than on endlessly browsing options.

Ironically, those limitations encouraged creativity.

They forced me to think differently.

Instead of asking, "Which preset should I use?"

I found myself asking, "What can I create with what I already have?"

I think that's an important lesson that applies far beyond music.

Whether you're writing, painting, programming, filming videos, or building something entirely different, it's easy to believe that you need better equipment before you can begin.

Sometimes you don't.

Sometimes the best thing you can do is simply start.

That's exactly what happened here.

I started.

I experimented.

I learned.

Then I kept going.

Would I make Lotsa Tones exactly the same way if I were starting today?

Probably not.

And that's actually a good thing.

Every project teaches us something.

Every project changes the way we approach the next one.

Already, I find myself thinking about new techniques I'd like to explore.

I'm interested in experimenting with more melodies.

I'm curious about creating richer harmonies.

I want to explore different rhythmic structures.

I want to see what happens when I combine multiple approaches together.

That's one of the most exciting parts about beginning a musical journey.

There is so much left to learn.

Some people worry about not being experts before they start creating.

I understand that feeling.

But I also think expertise is built by creating.

Nobody learns music by never making music.

Nobody becomes an author without writing.

Nobody becomes a podcaster without recording.

Experience grows through practice.

Every project becomes part of the education.

For me, Lotsa Tones represents that first lesson.

It represents curiosity over perfection.

Experimentation over hesitation.

Creation over fear.

Could I have waited until I knew more?

Of course.

But then I might still be waiting years from now.

Instead, I chose to create.

Now I have a debut song.

More importantly, I have experience.

And experience becomes the foundation for whatever comes next.

I don't know what my future music will sound like.

Maybe it'll become more melodic.

Maybe more cinematic.

Maybe more electronic.

Maybe something completely unexpected.

I'm looking forward to finding out.

For now, though, I'm proud of what Lotsa Tones represents.

Not because it claims to redefine music.

Not because it pretends to be perfect.

But because it marks the moment I stopped wondering whether I could make music and actually sat down to try.

Sometimes that's the hardest step of all.

Thank you to everyone who has listened to Lotsa Tones and supported this new chapter in my creative journey. Whether you discovered me through my books, my podcast, my blog, or now through my music, I'm grateful you're here.

This is only my first song.

There are many more experiments waiting to happen.

And honestly, I can't wait to hear where curiosity takes me next.