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Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We?
So I got this from...the internet. Because everyone else is doing it. And I'm all about the bandwagon. DISCLAIMER: I sort of randomly switch narrative techniques throughout this and the grammar is atrocious. I do realize this and I offer no explanation for it.Not much can be said for this period as I was only three years old by the time it ended. I imagine that those three years were my most musically formative, however, as I know I spend a lot of time listening to Dan Fogelberg, America and the Eagles LPs while in my mother�s care. In the beginning I was really very fond of the Benji Soundtrack and The Smurf�s All-Star Show. In the early 80�s my favorite songs included �Little Blue Man,� �Hole in the Bottom of the Sea�, �I am a Pretty Little Schoolgirl� and ��C� is for Cookie.� Interestingly, I still remember the lyrics to all those songs. I even remember bits and pieces of the songs on the Smurf�s album that I had, though I�ve been unable to locate any real proof that such an album ever existed. I spent a lot of time listening to AM radio with my mom in the mid-80s. We spend our days listening to Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton�s �Islands in the Stream�. The first song I ever really love with my whole heart, is �Karma Chameleon� by Boy George. It is during this time when I bought my very first LP � Madonna�s Like a Virgin. I wasn�t even aware that such a thing as FM radio existed until a fateful phone call one evening in 1988. It was around 8:30 p.m. when the frantic phone call came for me to hurry up and dial in to the radio station so that Tiffany�s �I Think We�re Alone Now� would make it on the �Top 9 at 9.� As I recall, my first reaction was �But I don�t even KNOW that song!!� It didn�t stop me from calling in though, and sure enough I heard that song for the first time that night and became immediately addicted. That Christmas was filled with Tiffany memoriabilia. I still have some of it. From Tiffany it was only a short jump to New Kids on the Block. I fell head over heels in love with bubblegum in the late 80s. I was a New Kids on the Block fanatic. I would spend my time alternately choreographing dances to be performed to certain NKOTB songs and flirting with the posters of NKOTB I had plastered all over my walls. There was a time when Donnie and I were a pretty hot and heavy item, I gotta tell ya. In 1989 I attended my very first concert. NKOTB with Tommy Page and Tiffany. Stuck in the second to last row in the large outdoor stadium, situated half behind an enormous cement pillar � I was in heaven. I wore my NKOTB tshirt everywhere, including to gym class where I got the first taste of the persecution I would experience in the name of love. My appetite for music continued to grow and I branched out to Debbie Gibson and Paula Abdul, Milli Vanilli and Vanilla Ice. I was crazy about music. I couldn�t get enough. In 1991 I spent the summer in Germany where I listened to a lot of Michael McDonald and Gloria Estefan. While in Germany I purchased the C&C Music Factory tape. I met a lot of kids from the youth group that my dad worked with over there and they were excited to talk to me about their new favorite songs like �Unbelievable� by EMF and �More than Words� by Extreme. I was more excited about Amy Grant and Wilson Phillips. And New Kids on the Block�obviously. By the mid 90�s I am ready to graduate from high school. I am in love with bands like Hootie and the Blowfish and Toad the Wet Sprocket. My taste is slowly easing out of the bubblegum mess I�ve entangled it in over the past couple of years. I discover my love for live music. I see Hordefest and Lilith Fair and decide that this is the sort of thing I was made to listen to. I decide that those Counting Crows fellows might not be so bad even though I�m sick to death of that Mr. Jones song. I think that The Wallflowers are the best band ever. Sarah McLachlan and the Indigo Girls make their first appearances in my music rotation and promptly settle in and make themselves at home. By 1999 I have moved across the country to North Carolina. It is during this time of desperate loneliness that I begin the internet dating thing. I have a personal ad on AOL (which, at that time, was totally free and totally awesome) and in it I list about 85 bands that are currently my favorite. A guy responds to my ad with the suggestion that, based on the bands I have listed in my favorites, I should check out Guster. I e-mail the guy back to thank him for the suggestion and the e-mail is returned to me. I check out Guster. I fall immediately, deeply, passionately in love. I try desperately to contact the guy who gave me this suggestion as I am sure, now that I have actually heard Guster, that we are soulmates. I finally contact the guy (after much stalking) and thank him for introducing me to my new favorite band. We talk online for a while and agree to meet. I am sure that this will be the man I will marry. It is not. He brings me a rose and we stumble awkwardly through conversation at dinner. He wants to see me again but I understand completely that the reason for him in my life has been completed. He was the angel messenger of music and I let it go at that. I meet my first serious boyfriend in 1999 and discover that he only listens to KISS. At first I find this extremely disturbing until he throws the KISS unplugged CD in one day and I realize that it�s actually kind of nice. I make googly eyes at him while �Every Time I Look at You� plays. A few months later he breaks up with me and I fall apart. I rely heavily on the Cranberries (�No Need to Argue�) and my old faithful The Eagles (�Wasted Time�) After the heart mends a bit I finally (belatedly) discover Dave Matthews but really only ever have a serious appreciation for his �Under the Table and Dreaming� CD. Taking what I�ve learned from Guster and Sarah McLachlan I look for bands that are not mainstream and tend to lean a little to the alternative/folk/rock side. My roommate takes me to an Aimee Mann/Michael Penn show where we sit in the front row and I spend the entire show with my jaw on the floor. I spend the next month listening to the Bachelor No. Two CD compulsively. In 2000 I meet a boy who is in a band. At first I don�t like him but I wind up loving him (as you do). He introduces me to Pink Floyd and I learn what it�s like to fall asleep, stoned, in the lap of someone you love while Pink Floyd plays loudly in the background. He thinks all of my music is crap and introduces me to Radiohead. I resist at first but then am forced to admit that Radiohead really is awesome. We continue to argue about music until one day we both randomly agree that Coldplay is a good band (him: because they sound like radiohead). This will come back to haunt me a couple of months later when the boy in the band breaks up with me and I spend a significant amount of time crying to the tune of �Yellow� blasting through my headphones. Single again, with nobody to give me any shit about my music I decide to take it to the next level and start randomly buying music that seems like I would like it. Music becomes an addiction to me. I fall in love with Nickel Creek (but then out of love a little bit when they release their next album). I embrace Counting Crows wholeheartedly and feel a little bit silly about my early misgivings. I continue to love Guster more than anyone else. In late 2002 I move back to Minnesota. Irony is cool so it�s now okay for me to finally admit that I actually still like old school New Kids on the Block and that Lionel Ritchie rocks. I hang an old school New Kids poster on the side of my refrigerator. I proudly display the old school music that soothes me like a warm bath at the end of the day, but my heart really lies with the new music I�ve discovered. And now? Now I am not picky about what I listen to. I still have a deep appreciation for the folksy stuff that my mom raised me on, the bubblegum that ruled my early teen years, and I obsess about the folk rock stuff that my adult self settled on. My CD collection crosses all kinds of musical boundaries. Currently - Counting Crows, Guster, Sarah McLachlan and the Indigo Girls have proven themselves to be tough cookies as they continue to round out my top 4. I�m constantly searching for something new. Oh�and NKOTB still rules. Back off.
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