Take yourself back in time, if you will. It's 1991. The landscape is changing. (If you caught that song reference, you're in a good position to be with me on this whole post.) The '80s are really over. The wall has fallen. Guys are looking like guys again, not moussed-up Duran Duranites or pink-wearing Miami Vicers. None of this is necessarily bad.
In 1991 I was convinced the Next Big Thing was going to be the Manchester acid/house music of bands like The Stone Roses and The Happy Mondays. It had a great beat, you know, and you could dance to it. And I was a 17-year-old girl whose greatest pleasure was the Saturday-night dances held by my friends in Alaska at some local lodge or hotel ballroom. They'd rent the joint for $500, convince somebody to bring in a big stereo or maybe real DJ equipment if we were lucky, charge kids $5 apiece to get in, break even and have something to do for the weekend. A good dance groove with a little alternative flavor was all I really wanted.
Then, as anyone who has ever found themselves involuntarily glued to VH1 for an evening knows all too well, this little thing called Seattle happened to music. I lived in the interior of Alaska, and we stayed insulated from the grunge phenomenon for a couple of years. I heard about it only through my friends from Juneau, kids I'd met at state drama/debate/forensics events. (I've confessed multiple times on this blog to being a nerd, but now you have evidence.) These kids knew Pearl Jam and Primus and Nirvana. We didn't really pay too much attention at first. It wasn't until summer of 1992, just after I'd graduated from high school, that I really started to see the whole thing explode among my friends.
I was, quite frankly, despondent. I wasn't ready to let go the whole groomed electronica of the 80s. Laugh if you will, but then download a little New Order from your iTunes or Rhapsody and maybe you'll get it. Or go back to Depeche Mode's 1990 Violator. I still like it and I'm not ashamed to say so. I married someone who basically felt the same way.
I'll just skip the 90s and the first half of this decade and tell you that now that G (who is about to turn 35) is regretting missing so much of the music of our youth. Pearl Jam has a new CD. He's loving it. They're touring. He wants to go.
In the last 15 years something has changed. I've gotten more used to the louder, harder sound of this music and can hear some things I like in the lyrics and melodies. When I hear old Pearl Jam now, I can say there are songs I like. But spending ~$70 to go to a concert by a group I spent ten years protesting by purposefully being anachronistic and weird in my listening habits ...
It seems like kind of a cop-out.
1 comment:
Go for Big Dennie. It's too hard for him to go in his chair. Do it for Dennie!!
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