Occasionally, I’ll share songs with friends. Sometimes people will ask on social media what others are listening to or seek suggestions for new music.

This intrigues me, because it’s easy to fall into habits of listening only to certain music. I really like it when I find someone new, especially if it’s outside of one of my traditional genres.

I tend to listen to standards and jazz, like Harry Connick Jr. and Diana Krall; indie singers/songwriters, like The Lumineers and The Civil Wars. Actually, that’s it. Most of what I listen to will fall into one of those categories — Jack Johnson, Frank Sinatra, Train, k.d. lang, Nat King Cole, Kaleo, Norah Jones, Tristan Prettyman, Adele, Jeff Buckley.

It might take a while for music to grow on me, while some I like immediately.

Let’s share songs

A friend and I were sharing music, sending links to singers and songs. That led me to Storm Large and OK Go. (OMG. Why didn’t I know about this band before? If you’ve not seen the group’s videos, go right now and watch one. Watch this one. Then watch another. You don’t even have to come back and read this. Just go watch amazingly cool videos.)

I shared my favorite song from this past year, “Say Something” by Justin Timberlake, which has an awesome one-shot video to accompany it, and some others by artists I enjoy.

Earlier this year, I got Pandora Plus, which isn’t quite as good as Pandora Premium, but I still get ad-free listening, can replay songs and listen offline. If I listen to or watch an ad, I can listen to albums or songs on demand.

Because of this, I’ve explored some different music.

In love with Panic! At the Disco

Like Panic! At the Disco.

My daughter introduced me to this group a while ago. The lead singer, Brendon Urie, has a great voice. The group had a song (“High Hopes”) in pretty heavy rotation on top-40 channels, which I heard in the car when I’d flip channels. Somewhere along the line, I added a channel on Pandora. Wanting something a little more upbeat, I turned it on recently, and I loved every Panic! At the Disco song that played. Fall Out Boy, Imagine Dragons and MCR are sprinkled in, among others, and I heard a quirky little ditty (“After Ever After” by Jon Cozart), and I’m OK with all of it. But Panic! At the Disco makes me smile. And chair dance — but not really disco, just jam. I liked Panic! At the Disco so much, I listened to an entire album on Pandora.

Let’s have some fun with this. What are you listening to right now? Or what’s a song or singer you think I should check out? Paste a link in your comment or just give me an artist/group name and/or song. We can all share songs and check out some different music!

OK? Go!

Be a Better Writer Tip

How do you wrap up what you’re writing? From my early days of column writing, I liked to tie my ending back to my lede — the opening paragraph or sentence. I usually had my main idea in my head when I started writing, so it was just a matter of bringing it back around. It was like putting a bow on it. Tying it back in reminded readers of where we’d started and brought them back to my main point.

Maybe you’ve noticed that I tend to do that with these columns, too. It’s a style preference. As you write, you might discover you like to begin and end your pieces a certain way — in a certain style. Maybe you have a tagline to sign off. Maybe it changes based on what you’re writing. You can try out different things and see what works for you. Of course, it doesn’t have to be formulaic, but writers tend to develop styles that readers come to know and expect.

In this particular column, I brought it back around to the main theme — the concept that we can share songs. But then I tacked on one more little line — a clever little play on one of the bands I mentioned. It worked so well, I had to do it. In this case, because it’s a light topic, it works to have fun.