Reading about the Hotel Chelsea in “Just Kids” is just so overwhelming.  On almost every page there is a new major person referenced and being someone born to parents that were once part of 60s culture almost all of the musicians sound very familiar.  Although I cannot put names to songs I know I enjoyed a lot of the songs of Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, and Janis Joplin in particular.  Seeing these names repeated, I could not help but listen to their music in the background as I continued to read.  Although I am just about free of these past musicians, as I am now enthralled with modern pop music and alternative rock, seeing these names and listening to their songs and brought back memories of long road trips as my parents listened to the Vinyl Classics station on Sirius XM.

I remember one class in which I said I am happy I chose not to be an artist because of the harsh life they live and now reading throughout this chapter I have to slightly recant my haste conclusion.  Although I still cannot imagine having to live with such a lack of financial security, I think it would be amazing to be able to surround myself with these very notable and famous artists and musicians.  It is a very diverse group of people and I remember Smith saying how it is as if the entire hotel held many universes as in each room there was just a whole different type of person.  As a developing artist she also says how many of these people had influenced her and in living in such a place, I guess you would not be able to help but be influenced by every artist around you.  I can’t imagine how interesting it would be to be surrounded by all of these artists everyday.

Like I said my parents were alive during this time and they were very into this type of music that was being made but they had never told me about the Hotel Chelsea and so it had been very interesting to learn about it by reading it from a artist’s perspective.  If you had not been able to influence this type of music I really recommend these songs: