Monday, June 04, 2007

The Musical Meme of Maturity

I am a reluctant doer of the meme, and there have been many tags that I have outright ignored, but one about music presented by SamuraiFrog, well, it appealed to me. These were the rules given to me for this task:

1. Go to http://www.popculturemadness.com/
2. Pick the year you turned 18
3. Get yourself nostalgic over the song’s of the year
4. Write something about how the song affected you
5. Pass it on to 5 more friends


Technically the year I turned 18 was 1994, but because I spent 97.3% of my 18th year in 1995(being born on the first day of winter will do that) and given the fact that SamuraiFrog basically covered '94 anyway, I've decided to do the latter year. And I get to video this whole thing up, which is totally my style, and I may have cheated a little bit about the definition of "hit". But here goes.

Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me - U2

I didn't want to like it, I really didn't, but dammit, it was just too damn catchy to ignore. I mean, I didn't really like U2 at that point, Batman was meh! to me... and yet, this song dominated the summer of 1995 for me. It sort of hangs in the warm ephemeral days between high school and college, like it fulfilled this strange transitional element in my young life.

Buddy Holly - Weezer

Yes, the video is an awesome product of the demented mind of Spike Jonze, but the song alone would have sold it for me. I mean, I was a geek in high school, and I admit it, so I could totally relate to this song. I wanted my Mary Tyler Moore. And I still love the fact that in that song-based relationship, what other people said about it didn't matter: "I don't care what they say about us anyway / I don't care 'bout that." That is a quality lesson for life.


Hurt - Nine Inch Nails

My older sister loved Nine Inch Nails when I was a little younger, and it sort of rubbed off on me when Hurt was reaching a mass audience. And as I as still a teen, well, as Bart Simpson said, depressing teenagers is like shooting fish in a barrel. I was reading Only Forward by Michael Marshall Smith, and this song would always be on at the time, and it was strangely appropriate(as was Heresy).

Superball - Helium

I had such a crush on Mary Timony back then (had? That should be "have"... as in I still do). I mean, that voice and whenever I would read about her or the group around that time, there was this shy sensual charm to her. Rawr! This was one of those tracks that influenced not only the direction of my musical taste in college, but also shifted some of my psychosexual baggage. Miss Timony, you still rock my world.

Naveed - Our Lady Peace

Since I am by a quirk of geography Canadian, it seemed only fair to drop a track from the Great White North onto this list. It just had to be done. Cancon and all. I was dealing with a double set of crushes at the same time. The song has nothing to do with that, but being the overly dramatic person I am, well, it has that meaning now.

Now, I am supposed to tag 5 people with this, but you know me... I ain't doing that. If you want to do it, then do so... if not, then what do I care?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I was going to do this (1993), but my list is just too damn depressing. To wit:

1. What Is Love - Haddaway
2. Come Baby Come - K7
3. Hero - Mariah Carey
4. In The Still Of The Night (I'll Remember) - Boyz II Men
5. Have I Told You Lately - Rod Stewart
6. Can't Help Falling In Love - UB40
7. Dreamlover - Mariah Carey
8. Supermodel (You Better Work) - RuPaul
9. Nuthin' But A "G" Thang - Dr. Dre
10. Cryin' - Aerosmith

Yikes.

MC said...

Well, you could always fudge it a little.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the inspiration - I've taken you up on your non-tagged challenge. Such memories. Of course, people seldom own up to listening to - shudder - popular music... these billboard charts must be wrong, because we all listened to nothing but The Cure :) But it's fun writing about these songs, even if you hated them.

MC said...

I got a hit from that too... thank you kindly ;)