A-Z of My Musical Tastes

Inspired by car ride games and cousin questions

My family went on a lot of road trips. Monthly drives to the nearest big cities, Detroit and Toronto, to see sporting events, live music and theatre. Annual journeys to Florida or Tennessee, 24 hours of driving for my poor parents. We’d travel down south with other families in a cavalcade of minivans. That was the thing to do then.

We played a lot of car games and my favourite was always the Band Name Game. Choose a letter and take turns saying a band or solo artist whose name begins with that letter. No duplicates. We followed the alphabetisation you’d see at a record store: disregard prefixes (“The” or “DJ”) and, for people, it’s by surname. The Beatles = B, DJ Shadow = S, Stevie Wonder = W. The most important rule was that at least one other person in the vehicle must have heard of the artist, so you can’t be too obscure or make up the name. (This was way before smartphones, and pre-compact discs, so you had to solely rely on the radio and your memory.) If you can’t think of an artist in a few minutes, you’re out. The game lasts until there’s only one player left.

As an adult, I’ve played the Band Name Game many times, and I like to think that I’ve won every time. In a car or elsewhere: I DARE YOU TO CHALLENGE ME!