There are purposeful posts and then there’s self indulgence. This one falls directly in the middle.
Every generation speaks (mistakenly) of how music was so much better when they were younger. It wasn’t. It’s just that, when people are younger, they tend to listen more intently; infuse songs with more meaning. They allow themselves to have more of an emotional stake in each record they buy. They fall asleep with their headphones on and a lifetime of dreams ahead of them. This is why they remember old records this way. It wasn’t just a soundtrack to get drunk by or the cultural by-product of a scene. For them, at one point, music mattered. It wasn’t just a soundtrack to get drunk by or the cultural by-product of a scene.
This week, amid all the other noise of life, I’ve been going back to records I’ve not listened to in a very long time. There’s been a world of memories flooding back to me and they’re all associated with very specific records. Everyone knows this phenomenon. A song comes on the car radio and you start crying, or getting angry, etc. Why is it, though, that most people, it seems, find this connection almost exclusively to records they listened to between their youth and early 20’s? It’s because they stopped listening. It’s not that new rock-n-roll (of any generation) is any less poetic it’s that people stop letting music speak to them.
And so it goes that this week I’ve been digging through the crates, so to speak, asking myself if I’ve accidentally fallen into this pattern of casual dismissal. As it stands, I don’t think I have. And one of these days I’ll get back to the business of writing about new records and the like. But, for now, I need to stay here.
MP3: Hurrah-Better Time (1987)
MP3: Teenage Fanclub-Everything Flows (1990)
MP3: The Church-Already Yesterday (1985)
MP3: Ride-Vapor Trail (1990)
MP3: Dreams So Real-(Maybe I’ll Go) Today (1986)
MP3: The Feelies-Deep Fascination (1988)
(PS: Tomorrow’s post will very likely be similar to today’s update. If you’re bored, go elsewhere.)
