I discovered U2 when I was in 7th grade.  I had heard they were good, and I thought that socially it would probably be a good move to get into them.  I asked a friend in my English class (whose brother was a confirmed U2 fanatic) to get me a mix tape of their best songs.

The tape was a winner.  It had all the best tracks and even some deep cuts ranging from their earliest work up to Wide Awake in America.  I listened to it at night while reading The Chronicles of Narnia.

Later The Joshua Tree was released and I purchased it on Vinyl.  Rattle and Hum was the first CD I ever bought.  Achtung Baby was the soundtrack of my entire senior year of high school.  I think I listened to it at least once a day.

When I went on my mission one of the things I had a really hard time with was letting go of my music.  I was afraid that I'd come home after 2 years of no popular music and find myself hopelessly out of touch with musical reality.  (This from a guy who completely missed Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and the entire Grunge scene because he was listening to Mysterious Ways 10 times a day.)

Once, as a missionary, we had dinner with a young family who had a large Pink Floyd collection on display.  The father of the family was a huge fan.  My own exposure to Pink Floyd had been fairly limited due to my fear of anything remotely associated with long hair, black T-shirts, and drugs.  (Bono's mullet notwithstanding.)  But I knew that their Dark Side of the Moon album had broken all kinds of sales records, so we made conversation about it.  I left there meditating on the sad state of people who stagnate on tired-out old bands.  "Luckily for me," I thought, "I'm into U2 so that will never happen."

Tonight I went to see Arcade Fire.  It was a great show.  I have to say though, that a lot of douchebags have discovered them since I saw them play at Thanksgiving Point a couple of years ago.