Growing up as a young girl in Astoria, Queens in the ’90s meant growing up with music running through everything. Rock was cool. Metal was cool. And if you were a kid with long hair, a stack of CDs, and a stereo turned way too loud, you felt like you belonged to something.
Music was everything. You'd come home, shut your bedroom door, turn up the volume, and disappear into the guitars and drums. Your walls became a collection of bands and albums that meant something to you. You didn't just listen to music—you lived inside it.
The ’90s were such an incredible time for rock and metal. Grunge was everywhere, alternative rock was exploding, and metal was still heavy, loud, rebellious, and unapologetic. You could go from Alice in Chains and Soundgarden to Metallica, Pantera, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, Van Halen, or whatever band had grabbed your soul that week. There was always another album to discover, another guitar player to obsess over, another song that made you feel like someone finally understood you.
As a young girl, music gave you a place to be yourself. You didn't have to be the girl who listened to whatever everyone else was listening to. You could have your own taste. You could wear the band shirts, grow your hair long, put on your favorite record, and crank it until the walls practically shook.
There was something different about discovering music back then. You searched for albums. You read magazines. You watched MTV and music videos. You went to record stores and stood there flipping through CDs, looking at album covers and wondering what each band sounded like. When you finally found something incredible, you took it home and played it over and over until you knew every second.
And in a city like New York, with all that energy around you, the music felt even bigger.
Those songs became the soundtrack to being young—to friendships, crushes, late nights, anger, freedom, heartbreak, and figuring out who you were.
Looking back, I don't just remember being a teenager in Astoria.
I remember the music blasting from my bedroom, the guitars screaming through the speakers, and feeling like the whole world was waiting for the next song.
