My favorite iPod playlist as of the moment goes like this:
Track 1: "Bad Reputation" by Freedy Johnston
Track 2: "The Lucky One" by Freedy Johnston
Track 3: "Doorways" by BMX Bandits
Track 4: "You're Not The Only One I Know" by The Sundays
Track 5: "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" by The Smiths
Track 6: "Wave of Mutilation" (UK Surf) by The Pixies
Track 7: "Leave Me Alone" by New Order
Track 8: "Unsatisfied" by The Replacements
Track 9: "In The Meantime" by The Railway Children
Track 10: "No Winter, No Autumn" by Moscow Olympics
Track 11: "Safe" by Moscow Olympics
Track 12: "You Forget" by Electric President
Track 13: "Waiting" by Pacific UV
Now, two things: one - this playlist kicks serious moping ass and I'm quite proud of it. Two - of the 13 tracks in there, only five are from this decade. This is the playlist that encapsulates the overall mood of my adult life. And all of the songs featured in it are either from the 80s/early 90s or songs of this decade that are consciously trying to sound as if they were from the 80s/early 90s (BMX Bandits have never left their early 90s sound, Moscow Olympics sound like a cross between New Order and The Railway Children, while Electric President and Pacific UV are channeling the dreaminess of Slowdive's dream pop).
Yes, I'm feeling a bit nostalgic. Music is the only meaningful way I know how to be. Some people might dust off old photo albums or tell stories about years past. I choose to do it by listening to the kind of music that inspires my most precious and most vivid fake memories.
Track 1: "Bad Reputation" by Freedy Johnston
Track 2: "The Lucky One" by Freedy Johnston
Track 3: "Doorways" by BMX Bandits
Track 4: "You're Not The Only One I Know" by The Sundays
Track 5: "That Joke Isn't Funny Anymore" by The Smiths
Track 6: "Wave of Mutilation" (UK Surf) by The Pixies
Track 7: "Leave Me Alone" by New Order
Track 8: "Unsatisfied" by The Replacements
Track 9: "In The Meantime" by The Railway Children
Track 10: "No Winter, No Autumn" by Moscow Olympics
Track 11: "Safe" by Moscow Olympics
Track 12: "You Forget" by Electric President
Track 13: "Waiting" by Pacific UV
Now, two things: one - this playlist kicks serious moping ass and I'm quite proud of it. Two - of the 13 tracks in there, only five are from this decade. This is the playlist that encapsulates the overall mood of my adult life. And all of the songs featured in it are either from the 80s/early 90s or songs of this decade that are consciously trying to sound as if they were from the 80s/early 90s (BMX Bandits have never left their early 90s sound, Moscow Olympics sound like a cross between New Order and The Railway Children, while Electric President and Pacific UV are channeling the dreaminess of Slowdive's dream pop).
Yes, I'm feeling a bit nostalgic. Music is the only meaningful way I know how to be. Some people might dust off old photo albums or tell stories about years past. I choose to do it by listening to the kind of music that inspires my most precious and most vivid fake memories.
My iPod, "Sonic Buffet", looking up at the past
That's not an oxymoron. And the only way I can explain it is by explaining my theory as to why, of all the musical genres that ever existed, I am particularly enamored by a specific kind of 80s music: the kind that has sad, jangly guitars, preferably mixed with a voice that is unmistakably British.
I grew up - and still reside - in an industrial town, its streets filled with rusted old factories, grease stains that are years-old, and weeded lots that, if not for the anonymous abandoned machinery, are otherwise vacant. These were the images of my youth. The sounds of my youth were that of The Smiths, The Wild Swans, The Lotus Eaters, New Order, The Railway Children, and The Sundays. They came from industrial wastelands much like the neighborhood I grew up in. They also came from England where there are an abundance of beautiful pristine hillsides and grassy fields inhabited by sheep. And somehow - through all those years of listening to their lovely and languid jangly melodies, through all those years of childhood when I felt sad for no good reason, through all those years of taking bike rides around our corroding neighborhood - all the emotions and images bled into what I look back to now as my childhood memory: of lovely pastoral sceneries, of romantic English hillsides and lakes, of old abandoned factories, of weeded lots where an old car lies, tireless, only the car is British, and the people sitting on it appear to be the guys from The Housemartins. All of these images are at once sad and beautiful. I'm not sure why exactly - they just are.
That's why I still listen to albums by The Railway Children and The Sundays with more frequency than contemporary ones. Because they have the kind of emotion that no other kind of music has: unspecific sadness. When you're 31 and you have to deal with the kind of realness and specificity that were alien to you when you were 13, that's the sadness you long for.
I wonder, though, what kind of memory the music of this decade will hold.
We're now nine months into 2009, the decade is about to end. This decade. The decade. Is it the 2000s or the 00s? Why haven't we bothered calling it anything? Did the Y2K scare subconsciously give us a vague date-related trauma? Is this indicative of the decade's rather nondescript quality? Like, it didn't even have an identity in the first place, so why bother naming it?
I guess I've been recreating the mood of the 80s and early 90s in my head precisely because this decade just feels remarkably unremarkable. But maybe this decade looks so fuzzy simply because we don't have the benefit of hindsight yet. We still have four months to go, but I feel like we could start sorting through the clutter this early. Why wait for something to be over before we get nostalgic about it? I say we declare this decade dead and give it its requiem.
And here's how I'll do it: for the next four months, I will be counting down my top ten favorite albums of the decade. I will be writing the reasons why they were important and why I think they will be memorable decades from now. Hell, I'll even throw in my top ten movies of the decade, since I cannot deny the fact that I have watched more life-altering movies than heard life-altering music in the last 10 years. Maybe this way I'll be able to step back this early and see the past decade from a distance. Hopefully I'll be able to see what it meant, if it meant anything at all.
I now recalibrate my nostalgia for this project, which I dub:
THE 2000s: HINDSIGHT IS 10-10.
The end begins now.
I grew up - and still reside - in an industrial town, its streets filled with rusted old factories, grease stains that are years-old, and weeded lots that, if not for the anonymous abandoned machinery, are otherwise vacant. These were the images of my youth. The sounds of my youth were that of The Smiths, The Wild Swans, The Lotus Eaters, New Order, The Railway Children, and The Sundays. They came from industrial wastelands much like the neighborhood I grew up in. They also came from England where there are an abundance of beautiful pristine hillsides and grassy fields inhabited by sheep. And somehow - through all those years of listening to their lovely and languid jangly melodies, through all those years of childhood when I felt sad for no good reason, through all those years of taking bike rides around our corroding neighborhood - all the emotions and images bled into what I look back to now as my childhood memory: of lovely pastoral sceneries, of romantic English hillsides and lakes, of old abandoned factories, of weeded lots where an old car lies, tireless, only the car is British, and the people sitting on it appear to be the guys from The Housemartins. All of these images are at once sad and beautiful. I'm not sure why exactly - they just are.
That's why I still listen to albums by The Railway Children and The Sundays with more frequency than contemporary ones. Because they have the kind of emotion that no other kind of music has: unspecific sadness. When you're 31 and you have to deal with the kind of realness and specificity that were alien to you when you were 13, that's the sadness you long for.
I wonder, though, what kind of memory the music of this decade will hold.
We're now nine months into 2009, the decade is about to end. This decade. The decade. Is it the 2000s or the 00s? Why haven't we bothered calling it anything? Did the Y2K scare subconsciously give us a vague date-related trauma? Is this indicative of the decade's rather nondescript quality? Like, it didn't even have an identity in the first place, so why bother naming it?
I guess I've been recreating the mood of the 80s and early 90s in my head precisely because this decade just feels remarkably unremarkable. But maybe this decade looks so fuzzy simply because we don't have the benefit of hindsight yet. We still have four months to go, but I feel like we could start sorting through the clutter this early. Why wait for something to be over before we get nostalgic about it? I say we declare this decade dead and give it its requiem.
And here's how I'll do it: for the next four months, I will be counting down my top ten favorite albums of the decade. I will be writing the reasons why they were important and why I think they will be memorable decades from now. Hell, I'll even throw in my top ten movies of the decade, since I cannot deny the fact that I have watched more life-altering movies than heard life-altering music in the last 10 years. Maybe this way I'll be able to step back this early and see the past decade from a distance. Hopefully I'll be able to see what it meant, if it meant anything at all.
I now recalibrate my nostalgia for this project, which I dub:
THE 2000s: HINDSIGHT IS 10-10.
The end begins now.
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