I don't know what happened, but when I went to publish this blog, Xanga decided to erase about 75% of the entry, and I can't remember what I said now. I'm super pissed, because it was a good blog. This is my rewrite.
I've been taking a trip down aural memory lane today. Siamese Dream, Mellon Collie & The Infinite Sadness, In Utero, Badmotorfinger, Neon Ballroom, Pinkerton, Adrenaline and so forth. I even went back and tried to listen to some Slipknot and Staind. Slipknot still made me want to punch everyone in the face. Don't know if that's good or bad. Staind is just awful, and I can't imagine what I was thinking during those 6 months when they were my favorite band. Ugh.
Listening to these albums, I can still hear the musical and lyrical elements that attracted me to their songs (except Staind), and why I sought out other bands that had those same elements. I can hear now how I refined my tastes by filtering out the sounds I didn't like and moving away from lyrical insincerity and melodrama while searching for a broader, more diverse listening experience. I can hear, in bands like Staind, where I simply made a dead-end detour that only led me to a few fun car rides and a bad party or two.
Of course, I didn't realize any of this at the time. I just knew what I liked, and I knew what was good about what I liked, and I tried to find more of it. Funny how a musical timeline as odd and unlikely as mine was achieved so effortlessly. One day I'm in eighth grade sneaking a listen to Green Day's "Basket Case" because I love the drums, and thirteen years later The National is one of my favorite bands, all because I've been following what I liked about that drum sound down the rabbit hole ever since. One day I'm listening to The Smashing Pumpkins' "Here Is No Why" because that guitar sound in the chorus is killing me, and a decade later my search for that sound and all of its variations has led me to countless other rock bands, each one better than the last. The same goes for any of the dozens of bands that I worshipped back then.
Listen, I'm not saying that these albums can't stand on their own, because they can. They were good albums then, and they're good albums now. I'm talking about my journey. I can hear how the message in the lyrics helped shape my worldview, especially during those last two years of high school. How these songs helped me find my anger about the world and the bubble I had been living in all those years. I can hear in a chorus or a turn of phrase how I began to see things through a different pair of eyes - my own - and how, with each strum of the guitar, my intellect became more and more alert, soon to be fully awake and hungry. I can hear it. I can still feel it, and I'm grateful.
Post a Comment