Having been born at the turn of the decade that was the
80’s, I can pretty much write off the first 10 years of my life in terms of
musical interest, after all, I was only 10 years of age when Public Enemy
released Fear of a Black Planet, The
Pixies had Bossanova out, and the god
of soundtracks, Danny Elfman’s latest gig was Edward Scissorhands (how did that
guy ever go for a piss without, you know?). My earliest memories of music was
sitting on the floor of our living room in Ranelagh in the mid-eighties, at 6am
on a Saturday and watching music videos in between cartoons with my sister who
is just over a year older than me. We used to sneak down creaky stairs, bring a
box of Corn Flakes, loads of milk, and shitloads of sugar with us (a 5-year
olds 2 fingers to Type II diabetes), and easily get through 8 bowls of cereal
by 9am.
Ulysses 31, wtf?
In
between watching cartoons such as Ulysses31, that would mess with any kids head (combined with the sugar was probably like
an acid trip), we would be treated to music videos. The one’s that always stand
out in my memory are A-Ha’s ‘Take On Me’, wishing I was in a nappy again with
Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, Rick Astley’s ‘Never Gonna Give You Up’ and Cyndi
Lauper’s ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’.
Probably by virtue of the fact she was older than me, I
looked up to whatever music my sister was into (for clarity, I still look up to
her, but not in terms of musical taste ;) ). She used to buy ‘Smash Hits’
magazine every Saturday with the 50p pocket money we’d each get every Saturday
for tidying our rooms. We’d both set off for the local newsagent, Keegans, and
piss the poor lady behind the counter off by asking for a variety of penny
sweets you’d need to develop an algorithm to make sense of. Afterwards, she had
Yazz, Bananarama, Fine Young Cannibals, Kylie Minogue, Salt N’ Peppa, INXS and
loads of other posters on her wall. I thought they were all great (yes, I did enjoy dancing to the 'Locomotion' as a child).
As the 90’s dawned I thought I liked rave music, which when
I look back is hilarious, I remember myself and other kids in primary school
writing ‘E for XTC’ on our pencil cases with Tipp-Ex, not even knowing what ‘E’
was, and listening to SL2 ‘On A Ragga Tip’, The Shamen’s ‘Ebeneezer Goode’, and
the still lovely Opus III’s ‘It’s A Fine Day’.
Reaching my early teens it was mandatory to wear X-Worx, Petro Motion and
Eclipse clothing. I remember realising the futility of such terrible fashion
choices when my uncle commented on my baggy Petro Motion trousers and asked me
what size they were, I replied ‘Regular’ with an indignant spotty glare, to
which he replied, ‘They look like one size fits the whole family.’
As
the mid-90’s approached I got swept under a wave of Britpop, and I remember one
of the hottest summers Dublin ever experienced in 1996 and listening to Blur’s
‘Country House’ while studying for my Junior Cert., of course I was also into their musical
rivals Oasis at the same time and remember being involved in almost
relationship-shattering arguments with friends over who had more credence, thankfully
a permanent schism didn’t occur and nowadays we calmly swap information on the
cheapest electrical and broadband suppliers instead. In addition, I was
listening to a heavy dose of The Beastie Boys Ill Communication, Paul’s Boutique and Check Your Head, which I consider great albums and still listen to
today.
But by god did I get knee-deep in Britpop, I was a whore for
every band going, Pulp, Suede, Manic Street Preachers, my favourite of them all
Longpigs (here’s ‘Lost Myself’ on TGI Friday below, check out Richard Hawley on
guitar). It’s all about being a music snob in your late teens and early 20’s I reckon,
deviously hunting for bands and artists that no one has ever heard of thus
cementing yourself as a proto-music hipster, a decade before the word entered
our lexicon. Along with the aforementioned groups if you denied the greatness
of The Stone Roses and The Pixies who were at their peak 5 years earlier you
would face certain ostracisation from your peers.
One day in 1996 I asked my mother about her record
collection, and the old record player we had had for as long as I could
remember, and as I rifled through it there was lots of 60’s and 70’s Top of the Pops albums, Herp Alpert (you
know what I’m sayin’) but she also had original Beatles albums she had bought
in South America during the Sixties such as Yellow
Submarine, Introducing The Beatles
(which I recently found out from an online expert is worth about €500) and Rubber Soul. I was completely ignorant
of music before the 80’s at this stage, at 16, I put on a record for the first
time, and with headphones listened to a scratchy version of Rubber Soul, and almost instantly realised
I had mostly been listening to the wrong music all along. To put it in
perspective, that album made me realise that there was better music made in the
‘olden days’, and I rarely listen to Rubber
Soul nowadays, because it’s far from The Beatles best album, but it holds a
special place in my heart.
Since that seminal moment in 1996 my appetite for music of
the era grew and grew, and I discovered the wonder of 60’s / 70’s bands and
artists such as King Crimson, Blue Oyster Cult, Deep Purple, John Mayall, Curtis
Mayfield and many others. For me the 1970’s is the best decade of music, there
are so many artists that produced incredible music during that decade, and I
constantly get introduced to new ones such as The Doobie Brothers a few years
ago at a jukebox in an empty pub on Wexford Street by my friend Ciaran who is a human music encyclopedia who has been known to indulge in large amounts of cheesy 70's and 80's 'hits'.
Another door that opened was a laborious project that came
about when I got a present of ‘1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die’ from
my better half and made it my goal to listen to every single one of them, I got
through the first 500 over a 4 year period and this had the effect of once
again expanding horizons and introducing me to genres I had little knowledge of
such as jazz,blues and soul music in particular.
Nowadays I tend to swing from only listening to old music
for prolonged periods and then going through a phase of seeking out
contemporary bands and artists. With the internet and ease of access it can be
daunting being faced with a massive volume of music to navigate, there are so
many blogs, websites, playlists, recommendations that sometimes it’s just
easier to stick to the album review sections of magazines, or one I’ve always
referred to over the years, the Culture section of The Sunday Times.
The joy of finding a new album or band we like can be hard
to beat, and is so rewarding if you make a discovery that you keep coming back
to year after year. A great album or concert can become a timestamp laced with
fond memories, from childhood, school, college and beyond, and the thought of
albums that haven’t been made yet, or songs that haven’t even been written yet
becoming tied to new memories is a great thing to look forward to.
