Hello, readers! It’s another “soundtrack” post. As I’ve said before, I am not sure how many of you, if any, enjoy these posts, but I love putting them together, so indulge me once again as I delve into the music that I liked in my post-college days. I’m focusing on my early 20s to mid-30s, so the time period is the early 1990s to the mid-2000s.

Right after college, when I was in my early 20s, I was living with my boyfriend/soon-to-be-fiancé. We were both influenced by hip hop, R&B/soul, grunge, singer-songwriter, and “college rock” (with closely related genres “modern rock,” “alternative rock,” and “indie rock”).

My love of dance music in college continued, morphing into a love for hip hop and R&B/soul. A few of my faves in the early to mid-90s were Deee-Lite, Arrested Development, Digable Planets, Jamiroquai, Soul II Soul, and De La Soul. And, living in Philadelphia, it was impossible not to like Will Smith’s “Summertime.”

Although Jamiroquai’s hit “Virtual Insanity” was mid-’90s, not early ’90s, I add it here because the style kinda fits, and the video is cool.

Another mid-’90s R&B dance favorite is “Scream” by Michael and Janet Jackson. Love the song, but love the video even more!

A very different genre, which I also loved in my 20s, was grunge. The music, and the culture and aesthetic of grunge, were big influences. The biggies, of course, were Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, and Alice in Chains. Nirvana was by far my favorite, and I was devastated by Kurt Cobain’s suicide in 1994.

I was equally into alternative rock. The Pennsylvania band Live was a fave. I was very into “Lightening Crashes,” although later that song got kind of ruined for me by some bad personal experiences I won’t go into here. Thus, I include a different Live video, “I Alone,” which I also loved. I pretty much wore out my copy of the band’s Throwing Copper CD. Can’t say the dance moves and hairstyles in the video hold up too well today!

In my 30s, after my divorce, I started to get more into hip hop and electronic music. A Tribe Called Quest and Q-Tip’s early solo stuff were hip hop favorites, along with Public Enemy, Black Sheep, and The Pharcyde. My top electronic loves were The Chemical Brothers, Portishead, Fatboy Slim, The Prodigy, and The Wiseguys. I also liked all of Del tha Funky Homosapien’s projects: his solo stuff, Deltron 3030, and Gorillaz (he was a guest performer).

Whether you want it or not, dear readers, I’ll post some more “soundtrack” columns to bring us from the ’90s to the present. I hope you enjoyed some of these videos!