Hi and Welcome to The Deep End. My name is Bailey Radenbaugh, and this is the introduction to my blog and the music that I will be writing about. 

To start, I have to say that this blog will not include many modern pop, top ten-ish tunes. I won't be analyzing Nicki Minaj, Taylor Swift, Flo Rida, or Miley Cyrus. While I have a separate appreciation for songs you bob your head to or listen to in the car with your friends, the goal of this blog is to delve into songs that will make you, in summary, feel something. Whether it's crushing sadness, heart-clenching joy, or Zen-esque peace, my goal is to find the songs that will bring a person to feel the kind of penetrating emotion that is best expressed through music. 


Although this blog will obviously be tailored to my own music taste, I hope that you will still enjoy the music I choose, and hopefully come to appreciate it and enjoy reading some of my personal insight. The music genres and artists observed will definitely vary. I will explore artists from Bon Iver to Eminem, U2 to Lana Del Rey, Nirvana to The War on Drugs, and M83 to Muse. I want to discuss popular and incredibly revered artists, up-and-coming, on-the-rise artists, and the lost artists who have been forgotten or ignored. There is only one requirement on The Deep End: the songs I choose have to take me to another place; they have to take me out of my head or make sense of what’s in it. 

If a song makes me stop and freeze, forget what I'm doing, or is something that I can only listen to alone at night because its intensity deserves my undivided attention, I will write about it. I want to discuss songs that can rescue a person from the present and swallow them whole, songs that can inspire a person and drive them to the edge. I want to find songs that make a person feel the highest summit of ecstasy or the deepest trench of despair, depending on what they choose. The music I talk about is going to be music that you'll want to drive to with the windows down under a starry night sky; it's going to be music that makes the world seem more vibrant and effervescent and soul-shattering; it's going to be music that seems to somehow capture life so well that you feel more alive just by listening to it. I want the music I choose to enhance the world around you, to upgrade your life in high definition. And if a song doesn't resonate with you at first, my goal is to provide you with my own personal perspective, to inspire you to listen to the music without thinking, and to feel the sounds instead of hearing them so that you can find your own perspective.

In my own experience, music seems to represent all that words cannot say. It reaches and extends beyond language, and it exists as a form of communication so complex that there are infinite combinations of notes and sounds, and yet it is also so simple that anyone can understand it. It's a universal dialect, a direct channel of emotion and expression from the artist, and it can embody the intensity and pain and passion of being alive. It is, in my personal belief, one of the most powerful forces in the universe. It can fuel revolutions, and pacify crowds. It can touch hearts, and break hearts. It can blow your mind, melt your face, and rock you to the core. And it can calm you down, inspire trance-like reflections, and speak to you like nothing else.  And that is what The Deep End is all about.  

I do not want to force any of my opinions or views concerning the music I choose. I just want to try to open the mind of anyone who reads my blog, even if the music is not necessarily “your thing”. I hope that regardless, the music still reaches you, and maybe even affects you in a new way. Try to listen to the music without defining it, listen without judgement, and listen with an open mind. To quote U2’s Bono, “Music can change the world because it can change people”. The fact that music can have the power and potential to reach people in such a deep way, and, as a result, potentially influence the way of the world, fuels my passion for this blog and its goals and intents. So, that said, welcome to The Deep End; take the sonic plunge.