Kura's Note: Please know that by writing up these opinion pieces, I am not tyring to force my ideas on you (see my religion piece for my views on that), only trying to show you one person's view of things. This piece should be taken no differently.

There are many things that divide the 'social groups' of today's school society. Among them are clothes, 'labels', social standings, but today we're focusing on music. Why music? Because music is something all of identify with in different ways, and it's an important part of everyone.

Go into an average 8th grade class, take a survey on their favourite artists, most of them will probably answer something that you will find on your usual Top 40 "hit music station". However, you might just find someone who is into something completely different. It seems to me, that if you listen to something 'different' often, you can get shunned because you're not listening to what everyone else is listening to. According to the 'normal' people, the music you listen to is 'weird' and so are you. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with this picture?

I can't see why people are considered 'weird' just because they prefer to listen to My Chemical Romance over Ciara, just as an example. Personally, I cringe at the mere mention of the name of 50 Cent, I scream when Hilary Duff comes on the radio, and I would really like to throw the whole lot of G-G-G-G-G-UNIT! in a large pit and seal it off with tar. I do wonder why the people who listen to that music can stand it, but that doesn't mean I go around calling them weird. Okay, sometimes I do, but I don't mean it as an insult. When I can't stand something, I find it weird, but in the interesting way, not the go-out-of-your-way-to-avoid type of way, that other people can. It's just part of my being inquistiive.

More times than I can count have I been labelled, called names and been given attitude due to the fact that I listen to Linkin Park the way others listen to 50 Cent. My only reply is "try listening to something else then." It seems that when one person gets stuck on one genre of music, they tend to go against another genre. While most rap makes me want to stuff sporks in my ears, I do listen to some rap, and hell I'm listening to Britney Spears as I write this peice. I hate it when people will refuse to listen to another genre of music, because of the groups of people who listen to their genre don't like another one.

Another thing is all the genre borders. Who says someone who listens to Metallica can't listen to Britney Spears as well? It's like Jay-Z once said "There are two types of music: good music and bad music". The music battles started by genre battles, in my opinion, are pretty stupid, because it's all opinion. It's like the hollacaust of the music world, with everyone trying to force opinions, and wipe out others.

So in conclusion I'd like to say: be accepting of other people's music preferences! It's just plain stupid, rude, inconsiderate and lame to hate someone because you listen to music that you think is good, and they listen to music you think is bad. Non-tolerance of other people's opinions is how wars start. Now if you'll excuse me, this Linkin Park fanatic is going to go back to listening to Savage Garden