Your Favorite Band at 42

When you are younger, you get asked about your favorite band all of thetime. "Who is your ' favorite band? ' is almost the first. question you asked when you met someone new at a show or in town. You were both sizing them up and seeing if your nusic tastes were compatible. You were making a claim for further conversations, and opening the door to both debate and # consensus. But, you don't get asked that question in your 40s.

Not only does no one care about who your favorite band is. it also says very little about who you are right in this moment. Your favorite band at 42 is very 11kely to be the same as the 22% Your musical tastes haven' t changed that much, and you aren't actively looking for new music one you had when you were 32 or

in the same way that you were when you were young. So, Your favorite band in your fourties says more about who you were in Your 20s than it does about what has happened since. It speaks to the shows youve been to on reunion tours and not the latest # record you've bought or streamed. It is the calcification of music. Of conversation, of relatiomships. You aren't the same person as you were then, but fox some reason you want. to keep returning to those same beats, to those same soothing tomes because there is a chance that they will make you

reel the same way you did back then. But, it is al. deminisnime returns. It is all an eifort to hold on to youth and the knowledge that with every listen, you are moving further away from it.

Nostalgia will not save us from the inevitability oi time. But, it does feel nice to crawl inside ofoccasionally. Our

favorite bands can lull us back to sleep, hoping for a better tomorrow while we wait out the interminable present.