One of the benefits to reentering the iOS ecosystem is easy access to the music I have in iTunes. Yes, I could drag and drop albums onto the SD card in my Droid, and I did have a few albums on it, but one thing that iOS does far better is music sync. I’ve been enjoying just listening to tracks on random, especially things I haven’t listened to in some time. It made me realize there’s some stuff I still love from my high school days, as well as things I like but not nearly as much as I did at 16, and thenthere ares the songs that pop up and I think, “Wow. Did I listen to this crap? Willingly?”
The “LOVE” band:
I have loved Sleater-Kinney since I was 16 years old. I was on a youth group trip to Israel and one of my friends told me about them. After one song I was hooked, and that was it. It’s been fun having Sleater-Kinney songs come up in the rotation that I haven’t heard in a while, especially their “Hot Rock” album. It came out my senior year of high school, so I hear it and get very nostalgic. In fact, I remember vividly when I received my “Hot Rock” CD in the mail (Sleater-Kinney weren’t big enough to be carried by the local mall record store), because my mother and I fought over my priorities. She wanted me to open the very large and fancy envelope from Rutgers, I wanted to open the CD. My logic was that I wanted to listen to the CD, and I didn’t want to go to Rutgers. Totally fair, right?
Anyhow, one of Sleater-Kinney’s few music videos came from that album:
The “LIKE” band:
Veruca Salt were actually my gateway into Sleater-Kinney and riot grrrl type bands. See, I was babysitting one night, and saw them perform “Shutterbug” on Saturday Night Live, and thought they were just amazing. It was while discussing how awesome Veruca Salt was that my friend told me I’d like Sleater-Kinney. While in high school Veruca Salt was just awesome, when I listen to them now I’m sort of meh. They’re great, but after a while, everything gets a bit repetitive. Still, I used to rock out to them every morning while getting dressed for school, and I’ll never forget watching them on SNL and being totally enamored of these two women rocking out on their guitars!
Here’s the video for “Shutterbug”, the song that enamored my 15-year-old self:
The “What was I thinking” band:
Seriously, I have no idea what drew me to this last band. I know it was the post-Nirvana grunge phase, but it’s shameful to even admit this: I really liked Silverchair. When tracks from “Freakshow” popped up, at first I was excited. I LOVED that album as a teenager. I have vivid memories of spending winter break with my grandparents and listening to that album while surfing the web on dial-up on my parents’ Compaq laptop. At midnight, of course, because my grandparents didn’t have call waiting and so I couldn’t tie up their phone line during normal hours. So you’d think an album I listened to for a week straight would still be enjoyable, right?
Nope. Not even a little. All it’s left me with is the realization that I was a very angry teenager.
If you really want to torture yourself, this is a sample of Silverchair’s work:
Do you ever find yourself nostalgic for music from your past? Are there some songs that have stuck with you through the years? Do I simply have terrible taste in music? Share your tales below!