|
|
Musical "This Is Your Life": The History Write-OffNov 09 '01 Write an essay on this topic.
Popular Products in Music
The Bottom Line My contribution to the History Write-Off: a mammoth, self-indulgent look at the musical history of wonderful MOI! The Epinions equivalent of a jolly good wank, basically.
My mission, should I choose to accept it (which, considering I’ve started typing this thing, it’s looking suspiciously like I have), is “to describe the songs that define you and your life”, a challenge set for me by the divine one (the Cheese, that is, not Christ). So, after giving it some thought (approximately 5.6 seconds worth), I have come up with the following collection of songs, records, and bands that have made the biggest impression on my short and uneventful life. Beginning, perhaps appropriately, with the “cheesiest”… ‘What Do You Want To Make Those Eyes At Me For’ by Shakin’ Stevens My sister gave this single to me one Christmas ages ago, probably 1987. I have no idea why I used to love this song, but when I was a kid I used to adore singing along to this cut by the “Welsh Elvis” that wasn’t Tom Jones. It’s just a really catchy song, and Shaky, as those in the know refer to him, puts in a fine performance on this track…oh, who am I kidding, this is one of the many pieces of embarrassing-but-ultimately-lovable crap that inhabited my vinyl collection over the next few years of my infant-hood, along with such “classics” as ‘Blame It On The Boogie’ by Big Fun, ‘That’s What I Like!’ by Jive Bunny & The Mastermixers and ‘Turtle Power’ by Partners In Crime. Other songs I distinctly remember from around this time, which thankfully belonged to my sister, are ‘Stutter Rap’ (can’t remember who did this one, but it’s basically a British parody of the Beastie Boys’ ‘No Sleep ‘Til Brooklyn’), ‘Loadsamoney’ by Harry Enfield and ‘When Will I Be Famous?’ by Toss…sorry, Bros. ‘Now That’s What I Call Music! Volume 12' Fast forward about 6 months to when this twelfth instalment of the “Now…” compilation came out. I remember being on holiday at some Haven holiday camp, probably in Whitby, and my sister purchasing this brilliant snapshot of the late 80’s musical landscape. This thing had it all: ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ by Tiffany (Britney WHO?), ‘Circles In The Sand’ by Belinda Carlisle (I think), ‘Don’t Call Me Baby’ by Voice Of The Beehive, the CLASSIC ‘Letter From America’ by The Proclaimers (you physically cannot stop yourself from singing along to this in a rather p*ss-poor mock Scottish accent…or is that just me?) and, bow down oh unworthy ones, ‘Can I Play With Madness?’ by Iron Maiden, to name but a few. I used to think this latter track was actually called ‘Can I Play With My Vest?’ (I was 5 at the time, OK!), which was confusing, but not half as confusing as the actual title – why the hell did the Maiden harbour a desire to skank along with Suggs and co.? Anyway, this acts as a nice link to the next stage in my musical development, POODLE ROCK! (Sorry, did I really say development?) ‘Get The Funk Out’ by Extreme This song rocked my world in ‘89/’90/’91. Well, not just this song, there were others too, including ‘You Give Love A Bad Name’ by Bon Jovi, ‘God Gave Rock And Roll To You II’ by Kiss and the aforementioned ‘Can I Play With Madness’, but this one best sums up poodle rock/cock rock in all it’s brilliantly OTT glory. When my sister ditched her Bros posters for ones of Skid Row singer Sebastian Bach, I too began to bend an ear to the…erm…“intricate qualities” of cock rock. I took great pride in mentioning to people that Bon Jovi were one of my favourite bands while my contemporaries were still idolising New Kids On The Block (although I gotta say, ‘Hangin’ Tough’ rocked!) and to this day I still love the two ‘Bill & Ted’ movies (“Melllllvin!”), although considering this was the turn of the last decade and all sorts of awesome music was being made at the time, I still wonder why the hell my sister was listening to f**king Cinderella when the likes of The Stone Roses were around. She now, somewhat bizarrely, never, ever listens to music anymore. Perhaps that’s what over-exposure to White Snake does to you. ‘(What’s The Story) Morning Glory?’ by Oasis As a kid I enjoyed listening to records, but I didn’t have the passion for it that I do today, and the years ’91-’94 were particularly lifeless on the music front. Comics and video games were the dominating pastimes in my life and the only music purchase I remember making during this time was buying ‘Come On You Reds’ by Status Quo and the Manchester United football team. I realise this is unforgivable, not only coz the song itself is sh*t, but it’s UNITED, man! What the hell was I thinking? I’m a Bolton Wanderers fan too! Buying anything remotely Red-related is treasonous in some circles round these parts. But anyway, enough with the football talk, it’s time to recall what I pretentiously like to refer to as my musical epiphany! It was the year of Our Lord, nineteen hundred and ninety five, when my ears started to become tuned to the musical genre known rather pathetically as “indie” (or, as it was even more pathetically referred to at the time, “Brit Pop”). In February, I witnessed Blur scoop four gongs at the Brit Awards and suddenly felt myself being pulled in to their melodic ways, in particular their classic singles ‘Girls & Boys’ and ‘Parklife’. Over the course of the year, the charts were bombarded with all manner of great songs by these so-called “indie”/ “Brit Pop” bands, from ‘Some Might Say’ by Oasis to ‘Girl From Mars’ by Ash, ‘Great Things’ by Echobelly to ‘Daydreamer’ by Menswear, ‘Wake Up Boo!’ by The Boo Radleys to ‘Alright’ by Supergrass, ‘Alright’ (a different one) by Cast to ‘Waking Up’ by Elastica. It was awesome – guitar based music was giving the pap in the charts a damn good kicking and after years of being bored to death by crap like 2 Unlimited, music was finally grabbing my attention again, and it all came to a glorious head with ‘…Morning Glory?”. Although I had sided with Blur in the “Battle Of The Bands” that summer, it was Oasis who changed my life. I bought this album in November ’95 and suddenly realised it was better than anything I had ever heard before. I remember playing it in the car the day I got it on the way back from a party, and just sinking into the seat and watching the street lights as the songs just kept coming and soundtracking the moment perfectly: ‘Wonderwall’, ‘Don’t Look Back In Anger’, (the vastly under-rated) ‘Hey Now’, ‘Cast No Shadow’…each one just blowing me away. I can safely say I would be a very different person today if I had never heard this record. Within weeks of buying it, I formed my first band. From then on, I knew exactly what I wanted to do – music was my calling, and everything else seemed to pale in comparison. Oasis lit the fire, and over the next few years several bands began to fan the flames in a VERY big way. ‘Dookie’ by Green Day Perhaps a rather unusual choice, considering my hatred for the vast majority of pop punk, but Green Day were the first band to introduce me to punk, and I don’t care what anyone says, they are brilliant. Pop punk has become an incredibly stale scene with all the bands seemingly trying to sound like each other, and certainly Green Day weren’t anything new when they exploded into the public consciousness, but goddammit, Billie-Joe Armstrong is such a great song writer! I remember a friend telling me about GD, going on about how amazing ‘Basket Case’ was and saying I should definitely check ‘em out. For the first and probably last time ever, I put my faith in someone else’s opinion and bought ‘Dookie’ having never heard a single track off it. Thank God I took that risk, coz from the off Green Day grabbed me by the balls and wouldn’t let go. Tons of energy, incredible drumming, snotty nosed, fun packed (but not too goofy), more hooks than a cloakroom – this record represents the pinnacle of the genre to me, and yes, I am including the Ramones in that. Songs like ‘Basket Case’, ‘FOD’, ‘Longview’, ‘Welcome To Paradise’ etc are all classics that never fail to get me going. I am yet to hear a pop punk band that can match these guys. They leave Blink 182 and the rest of the imitators eating dust. So yeah, this was my introduction to punk. This record is great in it’s own right, but it also paved the way for me to check out a lot of other punk bands too, from old-skool legends like The Clash (the EPITOME of punk) to hardcore pioneers Black Flag and modern day stalwarts such as goth-punkers AFI. It also gave me a taste of the punk ethic, something I’ll come back to later. ‘Ten Storey Love Song’ by The Stone Roses I can’t describe how important this band is to me. ‘Ten Storey Love Song’ was my introduction to the Roses, and intros don’t come much better than that! This song is staggeringly beautiful, even magical. It just has that indefinable quality, that ‘X Factor’ that permeates nearly everything the band did. You can’t put it into words, but it’s something special that no other band has. See my review of their eponymous debut album for a greater insight into why I love them (NB – this was the first epinion I ever wrote, so isn’t up to the usual xtrmntr standard, but it’s worth a look anyway ;-)). They inspire me both as a musician and as a person. Ian Brown may have lost the plot a wee bit during his solo career, but at the Roses peak he was THE cool-as-f**k voice of a generation. I can relate to many of his views a lot. Some of the stuff he came out with was pure class! One thing that distinctly sticks in my mind is an interview he gave in which his anti-monarchist opinions came to the fore in a fantastically sinister and dramatic way: "I fantasise about putting a blanket over the Queen Mother's head…I saw it on Clive James last Saturday," Ian recalls. "They were talking about how the British will never have another revolution because, at the end of the day, who's going to be the man that puts a blanket over the Queen Mother's head? *I'd* do it!" Awesome band, awesome people. They inspire devotion from their fans like few other bands. A particularly intriguing example of this is One Love Story. If you are a Roses fan, you’ve probably already heard of this, but if you haven’t, it’s definitely something you’ll find strangely interesting. Go to http://www.stoneroses.net/ols.html for more information. ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ by Nirvana This song may have been the cause of Kurt’s fame/pain, but I sure as hell like it, even if he eventually didn’t! This is undeniably one of the greatest songs ever written. Taking the Pixies dynamics and (not to diss Frank and co., but) using them to a greater effect than that band ever did, ‘…Teen Spirit’ pushes ALL the right buttons. For this song alone, Cobain is a genius in my book, but brilliantly, he had a whole load of great songs up his sleeve. Yes, as a good friend once pointed out, everyone has a Nirvana phase, and that’s something I most definitely went through in 1998. Again, this band inspired me both as a musician and as a person. They were the group that turned me on to punk ethics – the idea of paving your own way, doing what you wanna do and not conforming to others rules, sticking to your guns and not compromising, in other words, not “selling out”… Now THAT’S an over-used phrase if ever there was one. One of the biggest things I hate about many so-called punks is the constant misuse of the expression “selling out”. You sign a major label record deal? You’re a sell out. You’re on MTV? You’re a sell out. Lots of people like your band and buy your records? Oh no, we can’t have THAT can we! You’re a sell out! OK, I know this is digressing from the theme of the piece, but this is something that p*sses me off, so I’m gonna b*tch about it for a few sentences: To sell out is to compromise one’s beliefs or principles in exchange for a reward of some sort, usually a financial one. Now, several of the above are potentially situations in which a band are open to be labelled “sell outs”, but such labelling can only be justified if the band made it blatantly clear that they would never allow any of those things to happen. For example, if a group says that they will never allow their videos to be played on MTV, but later contradict themselves by doing just that, then they can quite legitimately be accused of being “sell outs”. However, if a band has no problems with MTV playing their videos, and MTV DO play their videos, then how are they sell outs? They’ve not contradicted themselves, they’ve not compromised, so they aren’t sell outs. Even if a band are only in music to make money, they’re certainly in it for the wrong reasons, but they’re not sell outs. They’re only sell outs if they’re dishonest about their intentions, i.e., if they go against their morals/ethics etc. Phew…right, now I’ve got that off my chest (and no doubt bored you senseless in the process), let us continue. Don’t worry, we’re coming to the end now. In fact it’s… The Last Paragraph (Whoo-Hoo!) So this pretty much brings me up to the present day. The bands currently lighting my bonfire and giving me inspiration include The Strokes and The White Stripes (a very fashionable thing to say, but I genuinely think these most hyped of bands are fantastic), Jimmy Eat World and others making up the “nu-emo” scene, such as Rival Schools and New End Original, Fugazi, the current crop of new British rock bands – including the likes of The Music and Hundred Reasons, and a very exciting new band from my hometown, who are gonna have a fantastic year in 2002, called Kinesis (you heard about them here first, folks! www.kinesis-official.co.uk for more info). As for my music related endeavours, I’m studying to be a sound engineer/producer at college, I play the drums in a band called Amigo (www.amigotheband.moonfruit.com) and am currently contributing reviews to the e-zine ‘Machineart’ (www.machineart.co.uk). Music has played a huge part in defining who I am today, and can’t see it ever ceasing to influence and inspire my thoughts and feelings. Thanks to Divine_Cheese for giving me the chance to write my most self-indulgent article yet. Be sure to check out other, no doubt equally indulgent articles by the other dudes and dudettes (sorry, the Bill & Ted influence remains strong) involved in this, The History Write Off: Divine_Cheese (obviously) Daniel_RF Alawston thevoid99 tallgent lambchops LessThanNick1 Peace out.  |
| Read all comments (4)|Write your own comment |
by George_Chabot
by kiwifella
![Jersey Boys [Original Broadway Cast Recording] by Original Broadway Cast Reviews](http://di2.shopping.com/images/pi/95/a4/8a/2006752046-100x100-0-0.jpg?p=p3.89e482f67c95a716628f&a=2&c=1&l=8071320&t=120603020713&r=1)
