Lifestages

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Another poll on a familiar theme. Obviously most here people will not be able to answer all the questions. Use the comments box to i. gasp at what other people say ii. explain yr choices if you like iii. muse generally on the changing place of music in your life iv. suggest more sensible staging points than the tyrrannous 5 year gap I have imposed here...

[Poll #1044379]

Introspective? Moi?

(oh and also I am using "song" to mean "piece of music", because I am lazy. "means a lot" can mean whatever you want it to - different things for different questions I'm guessing)

Comments

oh and v. !!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

PREDICT what you will like in the future :)

Re: oh and v. !!

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

man this is HARD. i seem to have a big hole where the music of 1984 should be, that can't be right can it?

Re: oh and v. !!

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

The NARRATIVE probably decrees that I start listening to gentle and soft music instead of crunk and techno, and getting shocked by whatever 2030's equivalent of the Pussycat Dolls is, at which point people will TEASE - but to be honest I can't imagine this happening at all and will actively fight it every step of the way :)

Re: oh and v. !!

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Nicola Roberts' solo career.

Re: oh and v. !!

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

More mum-pop!

Re: oh and v. !!

[epicharmus.livejournal.com]

Bread, Elliott Carter, and NOTHING ELSE.

push pineapple, shake the tree

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

really there's no excuse, i had to look up the hits of '84 as there seemed to be a bit of blank between adam ant and shakin stevens in 81/82, and live aid in 85 in my pop memory AND NOW I KNOW WHY.

nik kershaw and frankie goes to hollywood frankly a distant second and third to the "mighty" black lace...

Re: push pineapple, shake the tree

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i have copped out on 1984 (age 15) as it is TOO HARD

Attn Braisedbywolves!

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

PLEASE tell me yr 15-year old song was some kind of MASHUP.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

I feel that somehow Daniel Bedingfield and Space Cowboy were robbed by fickle birthdate, otherwise they would have been the 15 box. Also quite a lot of Eminemg and 'Juicy' by Notorious BIG. The Offspring are probably more representative overall, though.

I was doing my GCSEs at home when I was 15 and spent all day, from Scott Mills' early breakfast through to... John Peel I think, whatever was on last thing at night before googly jazz and things, listening to the radio and furiously TAPIN THINGZ*. I carried on this practice until I went to university, due to a combination of no money and no internet leading me to old-skool piracy methods.

...Oh no, I just realised that what I actually should have put in that box was 'Don't Forget Me' by RHCP. In my defense, it is a stunningly achingly beautiful song.

I feel I lied on the RIGHT NOW box as well but god knows what would have written otherwise.

*Apart from the two hours where I had to switch Chris Moyles off.

[alexmacpherson.livejournal.com]

I had an entire SERIES of stuffz taped off the radio!

[mippy.livejournal.com]

HAHA, yes. I have tapes from the radio, about 10 memorex with 'Radio Stuff March - June '99' on an d that kind of thing.

anyone else

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

find this ridiculously difficult? even just 'not thinking about it too hard' is hard :-(

Re: anyone else

[carsmilesteve.livejournal.com]

i blame the port...

[sbp.livejournal.com]

The song that means a lot to you in a given year doesn't actually have to come from that year. At least the way I read your question. So I'm not busy trying to remember songs specific to those years.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

Yeah a lot of mine are not from that year.

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

The final question was difficult. Obviously music hugely important to me now - my hobby is writing about it, I make money doing the same, my social network is rooted in it - but I'd be lying if I put anything other than "18-19" as the answer: half a year of speaking to almost nobody and listening incessantly to it, half a year of talking non-stop to new friends about it. What I like and don't like has never seemed quite as frighteningly, suffocatingly important to me as then.

[piratemoggy.livejournal.com]

Is that cus you then established your tastes and so the experience is not so... hrmm I don't know, like breakneck falling? I mean not that obv. your tastes probably haven't evolved since then but within similar fields and circles or something.

I think I am quite possibly still in the hurtling stage but the descent is slowing, to continue the bad metaphor.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

>> A song that meant a lot to me when I was 10:
> Apache - the Shadows

Because the coolest things in my parents record collection were Shadows and Beatles LPs, and Shadows tunes were easier to learn when you're 10.

>> A song that meant a lot to me when I was 15:
> Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

Because I became much better at the guitar and we used to play this in our band at the time.

>> A song that meant a lot to me when I was 20:
> Groove is in the Heart - Deee-Lite

Because it's one of the songs I used to dance to at university parties.

>> A song that meant a lot to me when I was 25:
> Cosmic Debris - Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention

Because by this point I'd watched the BBC2 FZ documentary and started getting into his musics, which are widely varying in style and generally quite interesting.

>> A song that meant a lot to me when I was 30:
> Ray of Light - Madonna

Because it reminds me of moving to London and sharing an office with a couple of guys.

>> A song that meant a lot to me when I was 35:
> Take This Job And Shove It - Dead Kennedys

Because I was playing DKs all day long on my last day when I got made redundant.

>> A song that means a lot to me now:
> Fvck Was I - Jenny Owen Youngs

Because it's a cool song by an artist I found when she was supporting Aimee Mann.

PS

[katstevens.livejournal.com]

Er the canon will be taking a hiatus today dudes. Back next week.

I object

[koganbot]

I object to the fact that there is no slot for age 50. "Rollin' (the Ballad Of Big & Rich)," if you're interested; age 45 would be Trick Daddy & Trina "Nann."

Re: I object

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

I should at least have put on 45, since it is - as any fule kno - the pop birthday!

[chezghost.livejournal.com]

10: Def Leppard - Animal. My brother and I jumping on my Mum's bed miming guitar with tennis rackets to this song. This happened in '87...I was going to pick something actually in the charts around the time of my 10th birthday e.g. 'Doctorin The Tardis' or 'Check This Out' by LA Mix (play it at Poptimism I DARES you) but this memory is stronger. Could've gone with 'Pump Up The Volume' too I guess, or 'We Call I Acieed', or 'Superfly Guy'...

15: The House Crew - The Theme. Closure on ardkore/rave loving phase as I decided to listen to US Rock for a bit instead so the last track from that period I really loved (along with Doc Scott's 'NHS') before coming back to Jungle a year later.

20: Air - La Femme D'Argent. Blown away hearing this for first time on Pete Tong's Essential Selection. Also it was a silly 'High Fidelity' style moment in Beanos when the guy put it on and several people asked what it was. Remember more bed-jumping to this (incongruous perhaps) after finally getting rid of my post 20th birthday booze-up hangover. I could've picked 'Music Sounds Better With You' for something after my birthday.

25: Audio Bullys - The Snow. Ruled the first 6 months of 2003 (now with 90% more ILM participation in my life) for me (along with Broadcast's 'Pendulum' EP). Time has not been kind to them since but the first album still has great bits.

My Choices

[freakytigger.livejournal.com]

10 - Eye of Tiger - I listened to music a lot in 80-82, and loads in 84 on, but not much in 83, I think because we'd just got a home computer. This was around a lot.

15 - Smiths / What Difference? - discovery of Smiths aged 14/15 genuine lifechanging event, I picked this track because I had an unrequited doomed crush (who didn't) and its petulance fitted.

20 - Pet Shop Boys / Can You Forgive Her? - loved (and still love) its smartness and popness. Theme of dishonesty to oneself always a winner. This year was mostly spent watching videos tho.

25 - Mercury Rev / Tonite It Shows - an odd and not-great time in my life, stuck at home, art-damaged Disney indie made a huge impression on me, also it reminds me more happily of first steps into Interweb mentalism.

30 - Crashed The Wedding - leaked 2 weeks before my wedding day, thanks lads.

Now - MIA/Paper Planes - see previous poptimists post.

Re: My Choices

[jauntyalan.livejournal.com]

i was this ][ close to putting Can You Forgive Her for my 25 and did the first time i tried. when i went back, i decided Stina was more important to me at the time per unit 'already talked about' here :-)

[credoimprobus]

I can't even answer the poll, my memory is too vague to bring up any specific tracks. So I'll do it the easy way with artists instead. (Also this lets me be much more long-winded! ahem.)

Age 10: I have no idea! I was quite fond of yr pop hits at this time, though, and my big sis was into hair metal so obv this meant I was too.

Age 15: This is right after I became a music fan for real, and I was still in the throes of my first ever musical obsession ie STING. Most important individual track would probably have been something off The Soul Cages or Bring on the Night.

Age 20: Hands-down most important artist at this time = Nine Inch Nails. This state of affairs lasted for several years, in fact.

Age 25: Omg, so much to choose from! This being the year when I really started using teh intarwebs to explore large volumes of new music. (Also easier to remember things from as I can cheat and check my lj entries from then, haha.) Poss something off/related to Kosheen's Resist, which was a hugely defining record for that year. Or CMX's Vainajala. Or, omg, Cex's track A Mansion as the Body She Resides In! (...and I'd better stop there before there is perishing of nostalgia and love.)

And since I'm still just shy of 30, the Now: seriously, Nelly F's Say It Right. Because it completely bowled me over when I first heard it at the start of the year (especially in the way it so perfectly appealed to my old semi-dormant goth/darkwave sensibilities), and it's still every bit as effective. It's probably going to be my song of the year, because at this point I don't see how anything else is going to usurp the position by year-end.

(I would also like to rep for Jori Hulkkonen's Dislocated but that would be CH34T1NG as that one's really from last year.)

Music's always -- since I Got Into It For Proper, anyway -- been a hugely important presence in my life, but I suppose the time it would have mattered even more than usual would be through the years in my early 20s when I was suffering from depression. I know it did a lot to keep me afloat during that time. </tmi>

[jel-bugle.livejournal.com]

10 - Europe - The Final Countdown: 1986 was a great year, and this was the best song from that year, or any year since. I often wish I could go back to 1986. I saw Europe live this year, and finally got to sing along to this!

15 - Megadeth - Rust in Peace...Polaris: "When will this cease, the warheads will all rust in peace". I always choose the wrong bands to like, there was a big Metallica gang at my school, but I always go for teh underdog and to me Megadeth always had the better tunes, and still do. Dave Mustaine is a whiny hero of mine. I got to see both Megadeth and Metallica live this year.

20 - Pavement - Fillmore Jive: I remember listening to this in a hotel room in Belgium, I'd spent the months before the holiday convinced that I was I going to die in an air crash on the way, and I was still convinced that I'd die on the way back. I didn't die, obv. Anyway, this is one of my favourite Pavement songs and hi-lights the lo-fi aesthetic that I liked at the time, and was the kind of music that made me want to make music.

25 - ?: I can't recall being 25, it was 2001, and my life was pretty good at the time. I was at uni again, wasn't working, so maybe music wasn't so needed. This was the tail end of my elephant 6/american alt-rock phase.

30 - Dragonforce - Trail of Broken Hearts: Life wasn't so great, and I decided that I really needed metal again. I bought some issues of Metal Hammer, and discovered some great new bands making silly loud OTT music. They totally deafened me when I saw them live last year.

Now 31 - Not sure, I feel like a bad phase in my life is coming to an end. I like "Holmgard & Beyond" by Turisas, which is more silly OTT metal. I've been listening to Aerosmith and Sigur Ros a lot.

[justfanoe.livejournal.com]

Age 10: REM - "Losing My Religion": I got a very slow start to music fandom and didn't listen to music too much but I loved this one because my older brother did and it was a nice bonding experience.

Age 15: Natalie Imbruglia - "Torn": This was my first favorite song and the first song I ever loved with no input from anybody else. i.e. I just heard it on the radio and loved it, it wasn't recommended by a friend or relative. Loved the pretty melody and acoustic guitar, and surely at that age the video didn't hurt either.

Age 20: Big Star - "The Ballad of El Goodo": If you asked 20 year old Greg what his favorite song was, this is what I would have said. I liked the melody and guitar, but really loved the inspirational lyrics. This song still kinda gets me pumped up, even if I've cooled on it a bit.

Age 25: Michelle Branch - "Everywhere": Can't quite recall why I picked this song over, like "Genie in a Bottle" or "Not This Year" or "See You Again" or something, but whatev. I love the song and it's probably my favorite single of the 00s.

Now: I'm 25 now.

Most Important: I thought about this for a bit and honestly can't think of any time in my past when music was more important to me than it is now. Maybe it peaked around late 2005/early 2006 if I wanna get a bit more technical here, but I'm comfortable saying right now.

[ms-bracken.livejournal.com]

I'm 25 now too so for the "25" question I chose something from round my birthday and for right now chose something for the whole year. It's pretty arbitrary (and I bet I won't say either of them for "25" in 5 years time) but there are so many...

[mackromackro.livejournal.com]

10: Rick James "Give It To Me Baby" (1981)
- This was the first song I remember where there was definitely a musical bond that my mom and I shared, which was R&B and funk. If it weren't for her, I have no clue what my musical direction would be thereafter. After Prince's peak, she became less engaged with music altogether, followed by dropping R&B for contemporary country at the turn of the 90s. In any case, I still think this song is fab. One of the best R&B pop singles of all time.

15: Negativland "Time Zones" (1987)
- Negativland were the first group I discovered in high school that completely changed what the boundaries of music could be. After getting the Escape From Noise album on a whim, I started re-editting all my favorite 80s dance hits on my cassette deck... I made a 15 minute "remix" of Yazoo's "Situation" just because I could. The pause button on my cassette deck got a lot of abuse. I was also taping anything I could off TV onto cassettes in case it became good future sample material. It finaly did years later when I did an experimental music radio show at KUCI.

20: Nomeansno "The End Of All Things" (1990)
- By now, I had "gotten" moving music, This Mortal Coil's "Filigree & Shadow" being the first one, much of 4AD following shortly after. (And here I thought 4AD was just that label that put out "Pump Up The Volume"! I had no idea they were an "etherial" label.) But I was also in college radio, so I began the race to find the loudest ugliest music possible, which I found a lot of fun. Somewhere right in between, the furious album Wrong by Victoria BC punksters NoMeansNo had a wonderful song called "The End Of All Things" that had all the fury but also had a choir, a catchy chorus, and this swirly din of nihilism and hope at the same time. I had no idea why this made sense to me then, but looking back, it made all the sense in the world. (Gulf War, L.A. Riots, etc.)

25: The Specials "Stupid Marriage" (1979)
- I was in the middle of my never ending first software job in Orange County. I had nothing to think about but wondering why I was single all this time. A year later, I would distract myself thanks to exercise and diet for the first time in my life... and after that, I realized I just enjoyed being single and there was nothing wrong with that. But 25 was a really boring and depressing year for me. However, there was one album that was always my sensible friend that just nudged me on the shoulder and told me "Baaah, fuck it. Just do what you like. Have fun." It was the Specials' first album. The song "Stupid Marriage" was exactly what I needed to hear. Before then, I thought marriage or a long-term relationship was the only thing that validated humans.

30: Bjork "Overture" (2001?)
I moved to Seattle in 2001. Almost a year later, I was laid off. A month after that, I realized I could survive off this unemployment thing, enough to take a month-long road trip around the U.S. I took off in late March. This was just before the iPod for me, so I was armed with an mp3 CD player and a booklet of mp3 CDs I spent weeks burning in preparation for the trip. I planned the very first song, right after I filled up on gasoline in Issaquah and headed towards Snoqualmie Pass. It was the sweeping orchestral song "Overture" from Bjork's Selmasongs. There's nothing special about this song other than that I felt it should begin my first journey into the rest of the world. (Somewhat embarrassingly, the second song was The Stone Roses' "She Bangs The Drums". I mean, the hell? 'FUCK YEAH! IAN, SING IT!' Lol.)

35 and now: Sientific American "Saints Of Infinity - Part 9" (2000)
I'm 35 now. The only thing I now worry about is the rest of the world. Sientific American (now Scientific American with a "c") is Andy Rohrmann, a Seattle area electronic musician and all-around very sharp guy. "Saints Of Infinity Part 9" is another orchestral piece, although pieces looped, while a very faint C/-]rl S/-\g/-\n is postulating about how humanity should not destroy itself in stupidity, but could instead safe itself and everything around it if it were to wise up. I keep playing this song louder as every year goes by.