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Apropos of nothing.
I found my CD case for Radiohead's Amnesiac in my stack of CDs the other day. The case was empty and the hinge was shattered, but the front and back still meshed together and held. I believe that I lent the CD to Brandon ages ago, and it's no surprise that I'll never, ever see it again. Even though I adored the art on the CD itself, music is music, and I spent the time last night to burn a disk with the songs in the correct order, and restored it to my collection.
Amnesiac was the second album I'd ever bought. Before that, it was listening to my dad's stuff, but really, I hadn't paid much attention to music at all. He was, and is, a bass player in a rock and roll band, and he really loves music. If a CD wasn't playing, he was asleep or practicing. Fundamentally, you could say that I took music for granted. I was 16 when that changed; driving home from a closing shift at a sandwich shop, and The Smashing Pumpkin's 1979 came on the radio. 1979 wasn't a new tune, it had been surfing the airwaves for years at that point, but that was the first time I heard a song and it was mine, not my dads. Sure, I'd heard stuff on the radio for years, and in cassettes, and on CDs, but this was the first time that the whole tenor of the world gradually shifted. It was like switching the tint on the TV, and suddenly the world was vivid and personal.
It was summer. The window was rolled down on my used, brick red Olds, and my world literally changed over night.
The Smashing Pumpkin's Machina and the Machines of God was my first CD. I bought it at Best Buy, and I didn't know how you could tell a CD you'd want from one you didn't. I only had the money I scraped up from working part time as that sandwich guy, and honestly, that's not a whole lot. I played Magic: the Gathering a lot at the time, trying to make it pro (so poorly), so buying a CD was kind of a big investment for me. I didn't know that the music world mostly considered Machina an overwrought, self-indulgent dud of an album; it wasn't what they wanted from the Pumpkins. But for me, that was my first in-depth exposure. Compared to the classic rock of my dad and what I heard on the radio, it was full of sandpaper and fishhooks, but it was also, to my teenage ears, full of musical truth. Every teenager in the world is going through a hard time, and that was the beginning of my music. I was house sitting at the time for my grandparents, so I'd go back and put my first CD in and turn the music way up. The Sacred and the Profane, Age of Innocence, and The Everlasting Gaze made the whole house vibrate.
It took a long time for me to buy another CD. I had been getting songs off of Napster, but if you don't have a hint of what to look for, it's still easy to get trapped in a rut even if you have thousands of songs to choose from. I took a hint and listened to some Radiohead, but I wasn't sure. I'd heard of the band before, so I screwed up my courage and my wallet and took a guess. I came home on a cold, rainy autumn night having almost been hit by a car with Amnesiac. I didn't really know that Radiohead were supposed to be the saviors of modern rock. All I knew was that when I put the CD in, it didn't sound like music was supposed to. It was pandemonic; metal banging on metal, wailing voices with barely recognizable lyrics, and a beat that came and went. I couldn't say if I liked it or not. It challenged me, but I listened closely to it. Music, like literature, can be difficult. I hear music snobs, and I use that term affectionately, try to explain it, but they rarely have the language for it. Music takes work. Film takes work. Literature takes work, and all of art takes work to love.
My first music tag. I really have been derelict.
I found my CD case for Radiohead's Amnesiac in my stack of CDs the other day. The case was empty and the hinge was shattered, but the front and back still meshed together and held. I believe that I lent the CD to Brandon ages ago, and it's no surprise that I'll never, ever see it again. Even though I adored the art on the CD itself, music is music, and I spent the time last night to burn a disk with the songs in the correct order, and restored it to my collection.
Amnesiac was the second album I'd ever bought. Before that, it was listening to my dad's stuff, but really, I hadn't paid much attention to music at all. He was, and is, a bass player in a rock and roll band, and he really loves music. If a CD wasn't playing, he was asleep or practicing. Fundamentally, you could say that I took music for granted. I was 16 when that changed; driving home from a closing shift at a sandwich shop, and The Smashing Pumpkin's 1979 came on the radio. 1979 wasn't a new tune, it had been surfing the airwaves for years at that point, but that was the first time I heard a song and it was mine, not my dads. Sure, I'd heard stuff on the radio for years, and in cassettes, and on CDs, but this was the first time that the whole tenor of the world gradually shifted. It was like switching the tint on the TV, and suddenly the world was vivid and personal.
It was summer. The window was rolled down on my used, brick red Olds, and my world literally changed over night.
The Smashing Pumpkin's Machina and the Machines of God was my first CD. I bought it at Best Buy, and I didn't know how you could tell a CD you'd want from one you didn't. I only had the money I scraped up from working part time as that sandwich guy, and honestly, that's not a whole lot. I played Magic: the Gathering a lot at the time, trying to make it pro (so poorly), so buying a CD was kind of a big investment for me. I didn't know that the music world mostly considered Machina an overwrought, self-indulgent dud of an album; it wasn't what they wanted from the Pumpkins. But for me, that was my first in-depth exposure. Compared to the classic rock of my dad and what I heard on the radio, it was full of sandpaper and fishhooks, but it was also, to my teenage ears, full of musical truth. Every teenager in the world is going through a hard time, and that was the beginning of my music. I was house sitting at the time for my grandparents, so I'd go back and put my first CD in and turn the music way up. The Sacred and the Profane, Age of Innocence, and The Everlasting Gaze made the whole house vibrate.
It took a long time for me to buy another CD. I had been getting songs off of Napster, but if you don't have a hint of what to look for, it's still easy to get trapped in a rut even if you have thousands of songs to choose from. I took a hint and listened to some Radiohead, but I wasn't sure. I'd heard of the band before, so I screwed up my courage and my wallet and took a guess. I came home on a cold, rainy autumn night having almost been hit by a car with Amnesiac. I didn't really know that Radiohead were supposed to be the saviors of modern rock. All I knew was that when I put the CD in, it didn't sound like music was supposed to. It was pandemonic; metal banging on metal, wailing voices with barely recognizable lyrics, and a beat that came and went. I couldn't say if I liked it or not. It challenged me, but I listened closely to it. Music, like literature, can be difficult. I hear music snobs, and I use that term affectionately, try to explain it, but they rarely have the language for it. Music takes work. Film takes work. Literature takes work, and all of art takes work to love.
My first music tag. I really have been derelict.
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