Credit where credit is due...

I have a very varied selection of music on my iPod and so when I set it on shuffle anything can come up from Bon Jovi, Nickleback and Guns N' Roses to Kate Voegele, High School Musical and Hannah Montana. I think this is true for most people because it's very hard to listen to the same style of music all the time and some music will have been put on when you're ten or eleven and you haven't quite got round to taking it off.

Anyway I put my iPod on shuffle this morning and the first song that came up was Gotta Got my Own Way from High School Musical 2. I very nearly forwarded onto the next song but then I thought I should just keep listening for a moment and before I knew it I was singing along (though how I know the words, I'm not sure). The thing is I would never do that if I was not alone with the door shut and I realised that's the same for most.

We give the credit to the artists that we think others will admire too (like Taio Cruz - who, btw, is one of the few rap artists I can listen to without wondering what has happened to the eardrums of my generation) or the music that we are most exposed to on radio stations like Capital.fm and a little goes to older rock music (like Guns N' Roses although I know that almost all of my year group - year 10 - have never heard of artists such as Foreigner, The La's or Meat Loaf and one of my friends couldn't name a single Beatles or Rolling Stones song and had never heard the song I can't get no satisfaction) but music that isn't popular, could be classified as cheesy, is from a soundtrack or if old music that no one's heard of, is generally dismissed as not worth the time.

High School Musical and Hannah Montana are examples where people might listen to the music in secret but there's no appreciation for the fact that there are composers who wrote that music and furthermore created a song that linked to a storyline. Or how about the film Music and Lyrics? Most people haven't even heard of the film yet the centre song Way Back Into Love is an incredible song on its own, without the story behind it.

I guess what I'm trying to say is don't judge music by it's cover because every song deserves credit and a listening. For every 3 minute song, there's been hours spent writing and rewriting by people who will probably never been known. And we should give credit where credit is due.