The beginning of this end.
Someone tells me Thurston Moore has called iPods the fluorescent lighting of music, and I’m inclined to agree; then again, my agreeing might just be in that sad, petty way of someone who doesn’t own an iPod. Yet.
It’s this “yet” that depresses me, Henshaw, like it’s fate, but more than that—my doom—to listen to all music in this broken-up-by-“tracks” (Whatthafuck happened to songs?) picking-and-choosing Impatient, Important Consumer way. One of the best experiences in zee mundo has to be listening and listening to an album until each song makes sense to you in its context. Especially because everyone makes that context up for himself. It’s beautiful; it’s dying.
The iPod and its MP3-playery ilk (Can you really blame Apple? No matter what, it would have been some brand, right? Some something, in our rearview manifest destiny mirror, at any rate) have steadily decreased the likelihood of being at a party and listening to an album all the way through, having it drunkenly explained to you by the person who loves it, or meeting someone wonderful and talking and talking and later you hear this album again. And having it remind you. I know you. There are records you still can’t listen to. There are records you will always listen to when you want to be reminded. Or whatever, any of the other thousands of things a record can do when it’s a record. Of an event. Of people playing music in a room. As one artist once said. Not me.
I think all this began with the internet, with being able to find music on the internet. Screw whole albums when we can just hear the one song, right?
It’s my fault, too. The other week I ran across the Very First Mix CD a friend made for me that was entirely from ripped internet tracks. This guy worked with me at my first job, this nonprofit in Atlanta. I also had a little crush on him, which may or may not have been reciprocated, but it was all very sweet, somehow, our friendship, which never turned into anything more than our doing goofy seated dances in his Volkswagen as he found new routes all over Atlanta, just driving and driving around, trying to eat at every burrito joint in that town. I was right out of college.
Right before Christmas of 2000, he emailed me and asked me what songs I’d want on a CD if I could have any songs in the world. Any songs—in the world???
Do you remember this, Henshaw? How mind-blowing it was?
I wasted the rest of the day then, wracking my brain and coming up with songs I liked but had forgotten about till then—songs from my childhood and from old high-school mix-tapes and from more recent years. The final CD was my Christmas present, labeled: “Xmas 2K.”
I’m listening to it now and feeling all kinds of nostalgia. So mix-tapes/CDs can do the same thing as regular albums, sure. But that’s because it’s a set list, reminding you of a specific time period. Particular set people you may never see again, or at least never see like you did the first time you heard that song.
So, here it is. Remember: This is from that period when there was still the possibility, it seemed, of Never Hearing a Song again. Of its being lost, forever. The kids, they were less automatically-hip, then. There was none of this Sirius Radio. None of this Pitchforkity madness. With that obvious apologetic preamble, here it is, the list of songs the 22 or 23-year-old me, chose:
Xmas 2K Mix circa Dec. 2000
1. “Tennessee” – Arrested Development
Say what you will, you snob. The beginning of this song totally rules.
2. “Blackbird” – Paul McCartney
Soon after this, my sister had her second child and I made her a mix CD with this song on it For Her Labor, which I now think is pretty funny. The thing stayed in her duffle bag the whole time, turns out. It also turns out Thirtysomething beat me to this idea.
3. “Blue Monday” – New Order
This song seemed so dark and sensitive in that creepyfake Iron Curtain-y Unbearable Lightness of Being-y way. All new wave songs in the early 80s tried to sound just as dark and jaded, but this one wins. Along with that Cure song about “I saw you look like a Japanese baby.” Har. I have a soft spot for such songs.
4. “Carry On” – CSNY
I am a small child. There’s my cool ex-hippie uncle and warmth and all things good. Everything else is foggy, but I still love this song. So. Much.
5. “Clap Hands” – Tom Waits
First boyfriend intro’d me to Tom Waits. I can sing every word to this in my sleep.
6. “Everest” – Ani Difranco
Yes, I was one of Those college girls. But listen: This song stands. This song is so beautiful, it will still make me cry without much prompting if no one’s around.
“And when church let out, the sky was much clearer/And the moon was so beautiful that the ocean held up her mirror.”
7. “Queen of Las Vegas” – The B-52s
When I was 13-ish, I went through a mad, early-new-wavey-B-52s-lovin’ phase. I bought that bio book Party Out of Bounds and cursed God for not planting me in Athens, GA in 1979. At some age other than one.
8. “Hold On” – En Vogue (Those “Never Gonna Get It” folks.)
Lord, so, at the start of this, the ladies do an acapella first verse of “Who’s Lovin’ You,” and it’s just awful. Straight-up flat. But the actual song itself is still pretty good, for a 90s radioland R&B tune. Though I admit, I’ve been skipping over this one on recent listens.
9. “I Wanna Be Adored” – The Stone Roses
In high school, my friend Janice put this on a mix-tape that I wore out. I remember sitting at my desk at the nonprofit and remembering its existence and absolutely freaking out. It’s a great song; you know it as soon as you hear the initial build-up and the metallic guitars that start it out.
10. “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems – Notorious B.I.G.
Undergrad parties, plain and simple. Plastic keg cups of Budweiser you paid four dollars for. Bee-eye-gee, pee-oh-peepee-aye.
11. “Spring” – Kristin Hersh
Her first solo album is flawless, and I love the second one for nostalgia’s sake. The third one is patchy, populated by KH’s once-just-inscrutable lyrics gone silly. But this song stands out. Perfect structure. Pretty Kristin and scary Kristin and still just pretty. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring as interpreted by Throwing Muses.
12. “Stepping Out” – Joe Jackson
Okay, so I’m four years old. And I’m in my big sister’s room, and she’s letting me draw in the red pen on her cube notepad in all the pastel colors while she gets ready to go out with her friends. Red, shag carpet, Garfield poster on the wall and this song, alwaysalways, on her record player or radio.
“We are young, but getting old before our time/We’ll leave the TV and the radio behind; don’t you wonder what we’ll find?”
13. “Trism” – B-52s
14. “Wanna Be Starting Something” – Michael Jackson
Mama-say! Mama-saw! Yeah, you know the rest…
15. “When U Were Mine” – Cyndi Lauper (Prince)
Always my favorite song of hers on her first record. Remember how, when she first came out, it was all “Who’s better? Madonna or Cyndi Lauper?? Who? Who?” I voted for Cyndi. I always dressed as a gypsy for Halloween.
16. “Africa” – Toto
Why? Why because, little kid/1980s, “Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like a lepress above the Serengeti.” At some point, I debated with my sisters over whether “lepress” referred to a female leper. And I just looked it up, and it’s spelled “leprous,” and it does. Well, "suffering from leprosy." Either way, whole new meaning.
Someone tells me Thurston Moore has called iPods the fluorescent lighting of music, and I’m inclined to agree; then again, my agreeing might just be in that sad, petty way of someone who doesn’t own an iPod. Yet.
It’s this “yet” that depresses me, Henshaw, like it’s fate, but more than that—my doom—to listen to all music in this broken-up-by-“tracks” (Whatthafuck happened to songs?) picking-and-choosing Impatient, Important Consumer way. One of the best experiences in zee mundo has to be listening and listening to an album until each song makes sense to you in its context. Especially because everyone makes that context up for himself. It’s beautiful; it’s dying.
The iPod and its MP3-playery ilk (Can you really blame Apple? No matter what, it would have been some brand, right? Some something, in our rearview manifest destiny mirror, at any rate) have steadily decreased the likelihood of being at a party and listening to an album all the way through, having it drunkenly explained to you by the person who loves it, or meeting someone wonderful and talking and talking and later you hear this album again. And having it remind you. I know you. There are records you still can’t listen to. There are records you will always listen to when you want to be reminded. Or whatever, any of the other thousands of things a record can do when it’s a record. Of an event. Of people playing music in a room. As one artist once said. Not me.
I think all this began with the internet, with being able to find music on the internet. Screw whole albums when we can just hear the one song, right?
It’s my fault, too. The other week I ran across the Very First Mix CD a friend made for me that was entirely from ripped internet tracks. This guy worked with me at my first job, this nonprofit in Atlanta. I also had a little crush on him, which may or may not have been reciprocated, but it was all very sweet, somehow, our friendship, which never turned into anything more than our doing goofy seated dances in his Volkswagen as he found new routes all over Atlanta, just driving and driving around, trying to eat at every burrito joint in that town. I was right out of college.
Right before Christmas of 2000, he emailed me and asked me what songs I’d want on a CD if I could have any songs in the world. Any songs—in the world???
Do you remember this, Henshaw? How mind-blowing it was?
I wasted the rest of the day then, wracking my brain and coming up with songs I liked but had forgotten about till then—songs from my childhood and from old high-school mix-tapes and from more recent years. The final CD was my Christmas present, labeled: “Xmas 2K.”
I’m listening to it now and feeling all kinds of nostalgia. So mix-tapes/CDs can do the same thing as regular albums, sure. But that’s because it’s a set list, reminding you of a specific time period. Particular set people you may never see again, or at least never see like you did the first time you heard that song.
So, here it is. Remember: This is from that period when there was still the possibility, it seemed, of Never Hearing a Song again. Of its being lost, forever. The kids, they were less automatically-hip, then. There was none of this Sirius Radio. None of this Pitchforkity madness. With that obvious apologetic preamble, here it is, the list of songs the 22 or 23-year-old me, chose:
Xmas 2K Mix circa Dec. 2000
1. “Tennessee” – Arrested Development
Say what you will, you snob. The beginning of this song totally rules.
2. “Blackbird” – Paul McCartney
Soon after this, my sister had her second child and I made her a mix CD with this song on it For Her Labor, which I now think is pretty funny. The thing stayed in her duffle bag the whole time, turns out. It also turns out Thirtysomething beat me to this idea.
3. “Blue Monday” – New Order
This song seemed so dark and sensitive in that creepyfake Iron Curtain-y Unbearable Lightness of Being-y way. All new wave songs in the early 80s tried to sound just as dark and jaded, but this one wins. Along with that Cure song about “I saw you look like a Japanese baby.” Har. I have a soft spot for such songs.
4. “Carry On” – CSNY
I am a small child. There’s my cool ex-hippie uncle and warmth and all things good. Everything else is foggy, but I still love this song. So. Much.
5. “Clap Hands” – Tom Waits
First boyfriend intro’d me to Tom Waits. I can sing every word to this in my sleep.
6. “Everest” – Ani Difranco
Yes, I was one of Those college girls. But listen: This song stands. This song is so beautiful, it will still make me cry without much prompting if no one’s around.
“And when church let out, the sky was much clearer/And the moon was so beautiful that the ocean held up her mirror.”
7. “Queen of Las Vegas” – The B-52s
When I was 13-ish, I went through a mad, early-new-wavey-B-52s-lovin’ phase. I bought that bio book Party Out of Bounds and cursed God for not planting me in Athens, GA in 1979. At some age other than one.
8. “Hold On” – En Vogue (Those “Never Gonna Get It” folks.)
Lord, so, at the start of this, the ladies do an acapella first verse of “Who’s Lovin’ You,” and it’s just awful. Straight-up flat. But the actual song itself is still pretty good, for a 90s radioland R&B tune. Though I admit, I’ve been skipping over this one on recent listens.
9. “I Wanna Be Adored” – The Stone Roses
In high school, my friend Janice put this on a mix-tape that I wore out. I remember sitting at my desk at the nonprofit and remembering its existence and absolutely freaking out. It’s a great song; you know it as soon as you hear the initial build-up and the metallic guitars that start it out.
10. “Mo’ Money, Mo’ Problems – Notorious B.I.G.
Undergrad parties, plain and simple. Plastic keg cups of Budweiser you paid four dollars for. Bee-eye-gee, pee-oh-peepee-aye.
11. “Spring” – Kristin Hersh
Her first solo album is flawless, and I love the second one for nostalgia’s sake. The third one is patchy, populated by KH’s once-just-inscrutable lyrics gone silly. But this song stands out. Perfect structure. Pretty Kristin and scary Kristin and still just pretty. Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring as interpreted by Throwing Muses.
12. “Stepping Out” – Joe Jackson
Okay, so I’m four years old. And I’m in my big sister’s room, and she’s letting me draw in the red pen on her cube notepad in all the pastel colors while she gets ready to go out with her friends. Red, shag carpet, Garfield poster on the wall and this song, alwaysalways, on her record player or radio.
“We are young, but getting old before our time/We’ll leave the TV and the radio behind; don’t you wonder what we’ll find?”
13. “Trism” – B-52s
14. “Wanna Be Starting Something” – Michael Jackson
Mama-say! Mama-saw! Yeah, you know the rest…
15. “When U Were Mine” – Cyndi Lauper (Prince)
Always my favorite song of hers on her first record. Remember how, when she first came out, it was all “Who’s better? Madonna or Cyndi Lauper?? Who? Who?” I voted for Cyndi. I always dressed as a gypsy for Halloween.
16. “Africa” – Toto
Why? Why because, little kid/1980s, “Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like a lepress above the Serengeti.” At some point, I debated with my sisters over whether “lepress” referred to a female leper. And I just looked it up, and it’s spelled “leprous,” and it does. Well, "suffering from leprosy." Either way, whole new meaning.
Labels: music, nostalgialand
posted by Alice at 11:49 PM
3 Comments:
Incidentally, Kristin Hersh's new album is fantastic. As, for that matter, is the new Dinosaur Jr. The early '90s live on!
Hey there, Kevin!!
I'll have to give the KH a listen. My Musical Drug Dealer tells me the new Dinosaur Jr rules. I'll have to give it a listen. Yes, long live that era--except not in that horrible, "I'LL tell you what your remember" VH1 way.
You know I still love albums, too. I do feel like some dinosaur about it sometimes, but who the hell cares?
I mean, you wouldn't read six random paragraphs from a novel and then think you knew the novel, right?
Speaking of albums, I love the Nina Nastasia so so so much. You're always right about The Music, didja know that? Always.
Post a Comment
<< Home