Did you ever start reading something and have several series of reactions? For instance, when you start reading, you laugh at a couple of the passages and say “hey, I can relate to that”, then you find something that annoys you or pisses you off and you want to stop reading but you can’t, and then you get to the point where what the writer is saying makes sense and you begrudgingly admit it. I’m experiencing that now reading this: http://www.avclub.com/features/whatever-happened-to-alternative-nation/.
Like the writer, much of my formative years were spent in the 1990’s, listening endlessly to the music of the times. I was a few years younger (from what I can tell maybe three years younger), so things affected me a little differently. A lot of my musical interests were driven by two sources: friends and MTV. I only read magazines like Spin or Rolling Stone when I was either at the local bookstore or working at the library (which was an experience in and of itself). Anyway, by being “controlled” by these two mediums, my musical tastes tended towards the popular: Kris Kross, Bell Biv DeVoe, Guns N’ Roses, Metallica, C&C Music Factory, etc. (Being the music psycho I am, I still listen to some of the corny stuff I did as a fifth grader, but that’s beside the point.) When I got my first boom box, these were the first few CDs I had: C&C Music Factory’s Gonna Make You Sweat (I have happily parted with this), KLF’s The White Room (in retrospect I wish I had held onto this), and DJ Jazzy Jeff & the Fresh Prince’s Homebase. I had tapes, too—some good (Beastie Boys’ Licensed to Ill), some dreadful (Vanilla Ice’s To the Extreme). Oh, and I was OBSESSED with the Batman movie (with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson). But I didn’t know any better and didn’t care what the artist was “saying”. I just liked the beat, and I’ve always been driven by that first.
Anyway, Nirvana’s Nevermind didn’t hit me until fall of 1991 or maybe even spring of 1992. I remember my first impression of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” being why are they writing about a deodorant. It wasn’t until a little while later that I realized they were mocking it. Then I thought it was a little cool. It was “Come As You Are” that put me on the Nirvana bandwagon. I loved the scene in the video where Cobain is hanging on the chandelier swinging around (which I tried to replicate on the jungle gym at the park while at a birthday party of a friend), and that’s what hooked me. Around that same time a friend of mine was playing “Mysterious Ways” by U2 a lot, and I started to like that. My CD collection grew two more CDs. The same friend lent me his tapes of Pearl Jam’s Ten (which I appreciated immediately) and the Black Crowe’s Shake Your Money Maker (which took me another year before I really got into them). With Ten especially, I felt like I connected with the singer. Maybe I didn’t fully understand everything Vedder was saying, but “Jeremy” meant something. “Black” meant something. “Release” meant something.
By this point I was a raving mad lunatic for “grunge” music (I have a growing distaste for too many labels), trying to get more and more. Unfortunately, my need far outpaced my resources, and it wasn’t until I was older that I was able to grab stuff that was seemingly slipping away. But I tried. I went to the library to borrow stuff. I embraced the artists that the bands I was listening to were influenced by. I raided friends’ music collections. I tried whatever I could to some degree of success.
And thinking about this stuff—the writer’s posts, my own life—I realized that the writer is not just evaluating rock music in the 1990’s—he’s coming to terms with his own past, where his life was then compared to where it is now. He’s doing this unintentionally, but when you read his comments about what he was like as a teenager and how the music affected him, you can’t help but think this. In reading this, I was doing the exact same thing (intentionally). I loved the Spin Doctors when I was younger, but I listen to it now and it means nothing. Do I still enjoy the music? Sure, but it just isn’t the same. Gin Blossoms—the same thing. There are quite a few bands that I loved back then that I just don’t love anymore.
But then there are some albums and artists that impacted me and continue to impact. The writer in his last posting on music in 1994 refers to Superunknown, an unbelievable album by Soundgarden. That album got me through a miserable family vacation to Myrtle Beach with songs like “Fell On Black Days”, “Black Hole Sun”, and “Spoonman”. I listen to the same songs now, along with the title track and other songs, and still feel the message. Likewise Alice in Chain’s Jar of Flies EP, which was a musical departure from their earlier two albums.
Yet all of this meant something different to each of us that heard these records and was impacted by the music of that period. Some people hate the music of the ‘90’s now. Some people can’t get out of it. I for a long time was stuck in the rut of listening primarily to music from that period. But I’m getting older now, and my desire to find new music has propelled me into multiple directions. And I think all of that is a part of maturing. I want to be inspired again by music. Some people share this feeling, and some people don’t.
