Tuesday, October 05, 2004

I am behind the times

Musically speaking, that is.

As unadventurous as I am, I am the least unadventurous when it comes to listening to new music. I only listened to modern popular music from 1993-1998, when my mother finally relinquished control of the radio to me, thus ending the tyranny of oldies* I had faced my entire life until then. Then I got my own car and the popular music times, they did roll. Then I realized the radio was crap, but it didn't matter because I didn't have a car when I went to college. Then I got a car but only listened to mixes of my or others' design. The only new CDs I bought in college were Soul Coughing and Tenacious D. Then my car got stolen, so even if I wanted to listen to the radio again (nah), it really wasn't convenient.

So I've been well behind the curve, musically, for most of my life. This has proven rather embarassing when good, popular pop songs finally gain my attention and I only start listening to "Hey Ya!" about a year after the rest of world has grown weary of it. I'm just not exposed to pop music. MTV and VH1 are almost uniformly odious, and almost never play music, anyway. My roomates are no help, considering Emory listens exclusively to metal and Leslie's tastes don't differ much from Emory's. (Although to be fair Leslie did introduce me to Sleater-Kinney's "One Beat," for which I am eternally grateful.) Fortunately, I've entered a new era of digital technology and high school friends moving in downstairs, so I can liberally sample Matt's music collection and blantantly steal whatever I deem appropriate. (Here come the Feds!)

This is really just a really long way of saying I ripped Matt's Weezer albums and have been listening to them all day at work. I actually own a Weezer album, I should say. I bought Maladroit about a year ago, since I came to the realization that I had very much enjoyed every Weezer song I had ever heard. Despite loving the album, I didn't buy another one. Thank God for CD burning! Now I can revel in the joys of "El Scorcho" or "Photograph" whenever I want! Of course now that I am so full of Weezer adoration I worry that I will put off everyone I know who listened to their first album ten years ago and who have long since gotten over their initial enthusiasm.

I guess what I'm saying is if you see me and I'm humming "My Name Is Jonas" with a faraway look in my eyes, feel free to give me a pinch or something so I'll stop vocalizing and go back to living in a very special 1994 of my mind. It just rocks so hard!


*Not that I have anything against oldies, mind you. In fact, I love them. But that's all I listened to until I was 13. I honestly did not know the difference between Paula Abdul and Janet Jackson until "Janet" came out. But I have a soft spot for the oldies. "The Great Pretender" was my favorite song when I was 11, and I love it to this day.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home