I bet you're right about that. I'm not a "has to be my music" kind of guy anyway. Well... maybe some music I'd rather not hear kind of guy. And that's mostly pop hits, music with zero to little content, created to sell/get airtime... "Strictly Commercial". I was working on a lady's house and she says, "How about some music?". She puts on this "Hits of the 80s and 90s" station and it actually put a miserable slant on working. Music's not supposed to do that! There was a lot of great music out of that time period, and a lot of it got quite popular, but I didn't hear any of that. I recognized most all the songs and it seemed like a carefully selected collection of every song I'd have been happy to never hear again. Thanks for the memories... NOT!
Buncha forsaken annoying "catchy tunes" that took weeks to get out of my head. One of life's great mysteries for me. How is it a song I don't even like, didn't want to hear, can get stuck in my head??
Tunes on road trips sure do hold those memories. I look back at places I went, certain scenery, and the music I was listening to comes back. Or, I hear that music and it brings those visions back. I was always big on cassette tapes, even back when 8-tracks were the thing. I always recorded my albums and a lot of those were never on 8-track. I also made theme-based tapes of my own mixing.
I was 21 the first time I drove cross-country, mid-70s. These songs by Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris will forever be ingrained in my memories of that trip.
And this one comes to mind, too... Bertha/Grateful Dead
Rolling my '71 Custom Camper out to Edisto Is, SC from Charleston early one morning, the family all still sleeping, I remember drinking my coffee jamming to ZZ Top as I passed by the country stores, garages, and trees with Spanish Moss draped from them.