This week we're taking a trip back in time - to the early 1990s. These were the years I wrote horrendous poetry about being invisible to boys, burned patchouli incense like it was fuel for the depressed mind, and "designed" my own clothes thanks to the encouragement of Sassy magazine. Those were the days, my friends.
I don't necessarily like all of these songs, they are just songs that take me back every time I hear them. You know how, as a high schooler, you were generally miserable and hated life? You thought about how wonderful life would be once you were relieved of all the pettiness, the angst, and perceived pressures of high school life. That was me, but when I hear some of these songs I wonder if it was all as bad as I made it out to be, or if I really am creating my own revisionist history by thinking it wasn't.
Anyway, there's a little bit of everything here.
Bush: Machinehead
I used to have a Gavin Rossdale poster above my bed. Yeah, I know. Still, he has aged well, hasn't he? HASN'T HE? You know you'd do him, so shut up with your judging.
Violent Femmes: Add it Up
P and I were dancing to this over dinner tonight. Well, I say dancing, I was dancing, she was bopping along in her highchair. Dancing to Violent Femmes with my kid. This is what I'd always hoped it to be.
Live: I Alone
Live are from the same general place as I am in Central PA. I remember thinking that was really cool back in the day, like I was also somewhat notable by extension.
Pearl Jam: Alive
I never really liked Pearl Jam, but pretended I did because it was the cool thing to do. Ironically, I like one of their songs off the "Into the Wild" soundtrack, now that they are classified as old man rockers. I fear what this says about me.
Smashing Pumpkins: Today
I think this, amongst some other Smashing Pumpkins songs, most typify what this time was for me. Sigh.
Belly: Feed the Tree
Probably a Sassy-influenced choice, as I dictated most of my life by Sassy's articles and reviews.
The Breeders: Cannonball
Definite Sassy recommendation.
Hole: Miss World
I've just reminded myself that there is a slow-paced Hole song that I really, really like. I guess I know what I'll be doing after I get the ironing done.
Blind Melon: No Rain
Again, never particularly a Blind Melon fan, but who can resist this song?
Happy Monday everyone. Thanks for the lovely comments about my HUGE AND UNSURMOUNTABLE REJECTION FROM WHICH I WILL NEVER RECOVER. Ahem. I am at Stage 2 of the grieving process, Anger, so I suspect I will reach the final stage, Acceptance, by 4.27pm on Tuesday. Again, thank you.
29 comments:
Oh dear. Patchouli and angst notwithstanding, your mid 90s sounds like a much finer time than mine! Cue flashback to university, poverty, very pronouced personal stupidity and inner city misery. Wish I could reach back in time and really BELT the 1995 me.
Had to smile at Pearl Jam's crowd surfer though. Hubby tells with much glee of the wannabe crowd surfer at one gig he attended who took an enormous plummet off the stage - oddly, he chose the thinnest section of audience. Who all moved calmly aside like the parting of the red sea...
I was a Violent Femmes listener before they became popular in my high school which made me what would have been classed today as "emo". While listening tonite Graeme was bopping along so you're not the only mom subjecting their innocent babe to such noise.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane.
Oh the angst!
Note self: get Cannonball for ipod.
Whenever I hear Cannonball, I think of that State episode when Michael Ian Black needs to buy pants. It makes me mouth silently to myself "I. Love. Pants." over the music.
Oh, and Sassy. If only I could get my hands on old issues of Sassy now. That was the greatest magazine of all time.
Did you make the dress out of the skirt and leotard? Cuz I totally did! Man, I loved Sassy. Jane is just nothing like it. The "It Happened To Me" section was really good too.
We are clearly around the same age as I can sing every single one of those songs. And have seen most of those bands in concert.
As usual... ah yes.
No Rain puts me at the beach the summer I was 15, the first time I really had a crush on a boy.
I miss Sassy SOOO much. so much.
& I still listen to Belly. & The Breeders. & yes, I have that Hole cd.
I had to let go Pearl Jam go when my weird (& MUCH younger) cousin started grooving on them. But such is life...
seriously- HOW can we get Sassy back issues??
holy shit, I think this is an entire side of a mix tape I made my freshman year of college. thanks for the nostalgia! i'd actually forgotten how much I liked Bush.
Does bring back memories, though.Ah, the 90's. I'm such a geezer (the summer I was *15*??!! Fuck. The summer I was 15 I think Journey released "Open Arms." Might was well be Bach releasing one of the Brandenburg's) I was already in grad school so much of this to me was "for the kids." Violent Femmes were the 80s for me, and by this point I was listening to ToadTWS and the like. I wasn't so into the angry vibe of Nirvana and Hole.
Thanks for the killer flashback. I think I must've been living the same musical life in the midwest. Ah, music...the great equalizer.
Oh dude, you brought me back to the Day. What day that is, I don't know.
Oh, no! Sassy magazine! How I miss it. And each and every song you posted tugged a different memory out of the corners of my brain. Very nice.
And I've been singing "I Alone" all day now, thanks to you, when previously it was limited to my teen "I'm feeling angst-y" moments.
You had me at Sassy Magazine. Again.
Oh, wow - I have seen every single one of those bands in concert. Yikes.
The best one was The Breeders at Lollapalooza 4 - they were the second band on and once the fast bit of "Cannonball" started, the whole lawn was jumping. From my vantage point at the top of the hill (and the drugs, of course), it looked really really cool.
I now have a very strong urge to shave my head and put on a flannel shirt. Thanks for that.
Were we friends in high school, because honestly, almost every one of these songs brings me back too...although some bring me back to college (I graduated HS in '94).
Live was fantastic in concert, and I saw Bush in concert in a tiny venue in Brixton when I was living in London for 6 months in 1997. At the time, they were HUGE in the States, but apparently, no one over there liked Bush in the 90s?
ohh highschool. ha ha. I love that you are dancing and singing with your daughter to Violent Femmes, so awesome!
Thanks for your comment and the compliment on my art, you are so nice!
Oy, the flashbacks.
I went to boarding school, and the rule was, the owner of the stereo chose the music. I did not own a stereo (My family were insane hippies who very rarely had much spending money and who got all their friends and extended families to pay my school fees, so I was ABSOLUTELY the poorest girl in school). So after a couple of years in dorms dominated by Bros and Belinda Carlisle (and now I must RINSE my brain) the hormones kicked in and Anxst Ruled. Ahh, the smell of teenage anxst in the morning. I always rather liked the Smashing Pumpkins. Was very swiftly sick to the back teeth of Pearl Jam.
Violent Femmes interesting. Hadn't heard them before.
To answer your question re. what I'm studying, I don't mention it too terribly often, but I'm studying philosophy. I think I don't talk about it too often because it makes people think I'm more intellectual or deep than I really am. I'm a cheesy goofball, not a great thinker... but the idea is that philosophy will be quick for me to finish, plus it will be great prep for law school.
damn, seems so long ago. All good songs, but my personal fave is the Violent Femmes one. That's a great song, brings back some great memories. :)
I read just a little of the previous posts you'd made and you sound like my kinda gal, so I'm bookmarking you.
(here from NCLM)
um. dude. did we live the same life?
bad poetry, check.
patchouli, check.
hardcore Sassy fan, check
EXACT same musical taste, check.
OK 1. There was a point in my life during which my highest aspiration was to either write for Sassy or be crowned Sassiest Girl in America, or whatever that contest was. and 2. Your analysis of these songs and your reactions to them rings SO TRUE, esp. Pearl Jam. I had no use for them, but I loved the stuff they did for that soundtrack (Jim pointed out that it was a genius move getting them to do it because it's TOTALLY the kind of music that kind of kid would've listened to). Ahhh. This is making me want to put Doll Parts and Violet on my iPod, even as the thought of Courtney Love's former credibility makes me sad for the sell-out punchline she's become.
I'm sorry about the job.
Loved the musical trip down memory lane. I went through a major Violent Femmes phase and still can't resist a few of their tunes.
Here I am from NCLM....and I don't know WHERE I was in the 90's...I graduated High School in 1982...UGH!! Feeling old but Remembering the 80's!! LOL
Thanks for making my visit interesting!
BIG HUGS
Sharon
Of the songs you posted, No Rain is the one that resonates the most with me. I love that song, but I find it funny that that's the only Blind Melon song I can think of.
Dood. Get. Out. Of. My. CD. Collection.
*ahem* not that the early-mid 90s were my prime or anything, no, not me.
New to your blog through NCLM; I totally am having high school flashbacks now. :)
I'm also from near where Live was from...imagine that.
Oh, how I loved -- LOVED -- Sassy Magazine. I once had nearly every copy, and my mom accidentally gave them away when I went to college.
I'd actually like to organize an online project where everyone with Sassy issues scans them into pdf format until we have reassembled the entire run.
These are my dreams, and they center around an out-of-print teen mag.
Oh my goodness. I believe I just went through a time-warp to high school. My heart is flip-flopping now.
Seriously. My husband is about 5 years older than me, so he just doesn't understand why I need me some Bush and Pearl Jam every once in a while. (NCLM)
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