A song from a genre you didn’t think you’d like—what changed?

The genre is musicals. Long story short, I was never a fan of musicals, though I probably didn't give many a chance... and the plethora of modern musicals that utilize a lot of modern music styles (like Hamilton), probably helped open my eyes a little.

The main reason I've given them a chance, though, are my kids... especially my son , who is a senior in high school and an active member of the theater program (mainly as an actor and scenic/costumes) at his high school. In the fall, he will be attending SUNY Purchase and their theater program with hopes of working on Broadway someday.

He's been a fan of musicals for as long as I can remember, but for his senior year he decided to step out of his comfort zone, take singing lessons, and audition for his first musical. He ended up getting one of the main roles in Anything Goes and fast forward a few months, we'll be attending the Buffalo-area high school music awards tomorrow night, where the musical is up for a handful of awards and he is a semi-finalist for the part of the program that sends two local students to compete in the Jimmy Awards, the national high school musical awards -- which if you win that, you are pretty much fast tracked to Broadway. So crazy!

Over the last few years, I've seen and heard many musicals thanks to all of this... and I'll have to say my favorite is Hadestown, written by Mitchell as I mentioned above... I absolutely love her songwriting and storytelling through a story about Orpheus and Eurydice. It's a love story, but also a critique of capitalism. Both things I can get behind.

I already have one song from this musical on my playlist for the year and it's probably my favorite one, so I'll pick the 2010 version off Anais Mitchell's concept album, featuring Justin Vernon aka Bon Iver, for this post.