Amy and I were discussing our first album purchases the other night. I was reminded of how behind the curve I was when it came to music, and even life in general.
I often feel as if I’ve lived my life one step out-of-phase of everyone else. By “phase,” in this instance, I mean a major segment of life, like “high school” or “college.”
I look back and realize that my high school years were largely spent figuring out the things that most of my peers had nailed down in junior high school — e.g. girls, pop culture, fashion, interpersonal relationships, etc. Until my senior year, I was largely an outcast, developmentally behind and socially immature compared to my classmates.
The first couple years of college were in many ways an extension of high school. I lived at home, dated significantly younger women (i.e. high school students), and wandered aimlessly about my curriculum. Of my first ten college courses, I dropped 6 of them; I changed my major four times and my minor twice. It wasn’t until my third year that I started making sense of everything, and by my fourth year I had finally figured out what I wanted to do only to run smack into graduation before being able to fully realize my goals.
The soundtrack of my life reflects this out-of-phaseness, too.
Amy revealed that she had a deep, meaningful connection with certain bands as early as 12 or 13 (out of respect for her, I won’t mention which ones). By contrast, my mother bought me my first album (Julian Lennon’s Valotte, which inspired the title of this post) circa my 15th birthday partially, I’m sure, out of concern that I hadn’t shown any interest in pop music. I didn’t even have a stereo; I played the cassette on an old tape recorder until my friend Al shamed me into spending $100 on a “real” system. I discovered David Bowie, The Police, and other artists largely via my local library’s collection of LP’s. I went through a pretty significant Pat Benatar phase. But, all of this was “old news” by the time I found out about it. Bowie’s significance was already waning (let’s not talk about Never Let Me Down), The Police had broken up, and Pat Benatar’s best work (if it can be called that) was in the past.
I didn’t get deeply into music until late in high school, and by then it was stuff that my friends had been listening to for years. I was very much the follower and not the pioneer. The most significant leap in my music exposure came during my senior year when my 21-year-old girlfriend Debi “willed” me her collection of punk and new wave albums before traveling to LA to kill herself (she didn’t; and that’s a whole other story). It was there that I discovered future staples such as The Cure, The Smiths, and Bauhaus, as well as more obscure favorites such as The Tubes, PiL, and Missing Persons.
I didn’t really start developing the kind of emotional connections with music that Amy had in her early teens until I was in college. I never went through the early adolescent phase of copying out deeply significant lyrics on my Trapper Keeper. I never closed myself in my room to listen to the same song over and over and over again while I wept over the unfairness of life. I didn’t experience anything approaching a religious feeling until, probably, first listening to Nick Cave & the Bad Seed’s From Her to Eternity at the ripe old age of 20.
How about you, Major Readers; share your early adolescent music stories with the group. What was the first album you purchased for yourself? The first profound lyrics you etched into your skin with a broken ballpoint pen in chemistry class? The first song that touched your very soul (not that I believe in that sort of thing, mind you)?
Taking a cue from a regular prize offering on Tonya’s blog, the best response wins a mix-CD of my favorite high school-era music.
Comments
Nothing like a pop music discussion to get me going . . . these albums
were gifts, but I requested them myself (circa X-mas of 6th grade): Quiot Riot -
Metal Health; Huey Lewis and the News - Sports; Van Halen - MCMLXXXIV. By the
middle of junior high, I was fully immersed in the "classic rock" of the
1960s and 70s, and refused to listen to anything current. I discovered Led
Zeppelin when MTV aired their concert movie one night. All of my high school
textbooks and Trapper Keepers had the Zep logo drawn on them.
In recent years, I've gotten more into jazz from the 50s and early 60s. I'm
also beginning to appreciate standards from the 30s and 40s, as well as
classical from the 18th and 19th century. I'm going backwards!
Posted by: Bill | September 5, 2006 6:13 PM
The first choices of my own that I actually paid good money for were Kenny Rogers "Greatest Hits" (1980) and Michael Jackson "Thriller" (1982). Quite a combo, huh? I was 11-12 years old and in 6th/7th grade. This was about the same time my mom was heavy into Willie Nelson, so I couldn’t help but appreciate that as well. We got one of those Columbia Music deals with 7 tapes for 1 cent and dubbed them all and immediately sent them back. I raked in Barry Manilow and Elvis Presley that way. I would dance in my room to “Copacabana” and croon to “You Picked a Fine Time to Leave Me, Lucille”.
I realized my musical tastes weren’t quite hip when I suggested the 7th and 8th grade songleaders do their routine to a medley of classical tunes including “Flight of the Bumblebee”. They chose “Urgent” by Foreigner instead. Go figure.
The turning point took place my sophomore year of high school when I was on swim team. During a meet, I found a cassette tape in the locker room with “O.M.D. – Junk Culture” (1984) on one side and “General Public – All the Rage” (1984) on the other. I listened to it non-stop, having never heard of either band before. That started the “new wave” “modern rock” affinity.
In high school, we used steno pads to write notes to each other and pass them between classes so the other person could reply. These were always chock full of meaningful song lyrics which, when correctly interpreted, were meant to impress upon the other person (usually a member of the opposite sex) your true feelings for them. For me, these included “Drowning Man” from U2 “War”, “Talking Loud and Clear” by OMD when I was 16.
Another great influx in high school was a friend that habitually stole cassettes from K-Mart. From there we got the B-52’s, Pet Shop Boys, and Allison Moyet. . The older boys down the street told me about Simple Minds, U2, REM, The Cure, The Smiths and Echo and the Bunnymen. A boyfriend was into Rush, The Sparks, Oingo Boingo and Bauhaus. All of that before I got to college.
In all those years, no one ever introduced me to Bowie (maybe a little Ziggy Stardust). Which is likely why, when first discussing musical tastes with Amy, my reaction was, “Bowie?”. Totally foreign. Same with Peter Gabriel. College years added Erasure, Violent Femmes, New Order, and Housemartins.
It took years stuck with a Buick Skylark with only AM radio to get me into Big Band and vocal standards.
Posted by: Liana | September 5, 2006 9:36 PM
Music, eh?
I was forced to grow up with 3 elder siblings who had a decided influence on wheat I listened to. I could not choose music in the car, they did that. Thus, while in 5th and 6th grade, I was exposed to Foreigner (4), Loverboy (Get Lucky), Sammy Hagar (Standing Hampton), Rush (Moving Pictures), Andy Gibb (Shadow Dancing)...I could punish your readers further.
My first tapes I bought with my money were Bowie (Let's Dance) and AC/DC (Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap)...you can still hear the lyrics...can't you?
But my sisters led me down the path I have not deviated from, new wave...starting with Soft Cell's Tainted Love/Where Did Our Love Go. That got me interested. But what got me hooked was my best gay friend in high school who was totally into 45" singles from England. New Order, Blanc Mange, Yaz, Depeche Mode, Wham!, and more, some with really big hair.
But somehow, Alphaville (think Forever Young) rose to the top. It was the song to play on a date, at the end of the party, or the end of the dance, the song for your senior prom, and the one you made your friends promise to play at your funeral, which was just around the corner, because you had been listening to Joy Division.
It wasn't until AFTER marriage that my music again took an evolutionary turn, based on a weekend road trip with my wife. Suddenly it was all about the Smiths. I was almost 30 and was thinking about changing my wardrobe to black and going on a diet, so I could look like Morrissey. Because I wasn't a confused 15 year old, the Smiths were not destined to hold me for long...
So New Order, old and new, came back into my life as the bedrock of my musical world. It helped that my toddler daughter got to the point where she could ask for certain songs (Temptation) and then ask to skip others (Confusion...go figure). And that is where I am at, stuck in the 80's but surrounded by old friends, holding my daughters hand.
Posted by: Peter Werner | September 6, 2006 6:46 AM
Cripes! You're all making me feel so freakin' OLD. My first memories of rock music include watching Dick Clark's Bandstand at a friend's house after school when I was six or seven years old! We're talking 1957 or 1958, and the show wasn't even called American Bandstand yet. Yes, it was on every day during the week. I distinctly remember seeing Little Richard for the first time on that show. In the 50's, my brother and I would change the family radio to the local rock and roll station every chance we could get until we were old enough to get our own radios (and change it back whenever the parental units were nearby). Ah, yes... I was there almost at the beginning of rock music, and am still rockin' today! In fact, I can't wait to watch tonight's episode of Rockstar Supernova. There's something in every era of rock that I like, but for me the best music was the era between 1965 and 1975. Too many bands to mention, so we won't go there now.
Posted by: arrmac | September 6, 2006 5:51 PM