So for the past couple of evenings my ears have been firmly back in the Eighties.
Funny thing is, I spent quite a time being a bit condescending of people who buy these enormous compendia of packaged "decade-in-a-box" type music. I don't know why. Maybe it was the naffness of a retreat into nostalgia instead of angaging with today, or something equally edgy-sounding. Anyway, I stopped at a servo at well after 1am late last week, and the boxed set was there by the counter, and my will was weak at that time of morning, so I now own this rather unnervingly pink box of five CDs spanning from 1980 to 1989.
I'm kind of glorying in the naffness, if you must know. These discs aren't straight bubblegum, but they're certainly not compiled according to some hip critic's "stuff that was super edgy and influential that very few people knew about except with hindsight, that people will be really impressed to find out that you're into" list. There's an awful lot of tunes that I remember bouncing around to as a teenager with an FM radio, and bounced around to again now, with a silly grin on my face, and it was fun. And because the fashion to strip tunes right back to the beat hadn't reached the strength it would in the 90s, there were a lot of catchy melodies to hum along with, and because I deliberately didn't read the track lists there were plenty of "oh, god, I remember this!" moments. I wound up sitting up a lot later than I'd expected to, listening to it all.
I don't think I'll do that again, though. I don't know quite why, but by the time I was at the end of the collection I was starting to feel kind of melancholy. Okay, partly it was being way overdue for some sleep, my mood always crashes when I'm tired, but it wasn't all that. It was something to do with being so totally immersed in a twenty-year-old part of my life, but it wasn't a grief-for-lost-youth thing either, I'm rather at peace with my long-evaporatied teenage years.
The closest thing I can think of is that I kind of feel bad for them. I know that probably doesn't makse sense, but it's the closest I can get at the moment. Something about how I'm back there, listening to all these songs like those days are back, but it's like I know they're not back and the songs don't. I know what happens to these acts, I know which of them die, which of them break up, which of them never have a hit again, I know that the whole era that these things are part of ends and goes on to other things. Maybe this is the crux of it: so much of the enjoyment of that sort of music is that you're living happily in the moment, and here I was, increasingly aware that I wasn't living in the moment, I was artificially recreating a long-dead moment instead.
I didn't rip the headphones off and burst into tears or anything, but there was a definite sombre edge to the thing when I ejected the last disc and went to bed.
Ah, well.
(But damn, it's good to have an actual recording of "Man Overboard" again. I'd almost given up hope of finding one.)
Funny thing is, I spent quite a time being a bit condescending of people who buy these enormous compendia of packaged "decade-in-a-box" type music. I don't know why. Maybe it was the naffness of a retreat into nostalgia instead of angaging with today, or something equally edgy-sounding. Anyway, I stopped at a servo at well after 1am late last week, and the boxed set was there by the counter, and my will was weak at that time of morning, so I now own this rather unnervingly pink box of five CDs spanning from 1980 to 1989.
I'm kind of glorying in the naffness, if you must know. These discs aren't straight bubblegum, but they're certainly not compiled according to some hip critic's "stuff that was super edgy and influential that very few people knew about except with hindsight, that people will be really impressed to find out that you're into" list. There's an awful lot of tunes that I remember bouncing around to as a teenager with an FM radio, and bounced around to again now, with a silly grin on my face, and it was fun. And because the fashion to strip tunes right back to the beat hadn't reached the strength it would in the 90s, there were a lot of catchy melodies to hum along with, and because I deliberately didn't read the track lists there were plenty of "oh, god, I remember this!" moments. I wound up sitting up a lot later than I'd expected to, listening to it all.
I don't think I'll do that again, though. I don't know quite why, but by the time I was at the end of the collection I was starting to feel kind of melancholy. Okay, partly it was being way overdue for some sleep, my mood always crashes when I'm tired, but it wasn't all that. It was something to do with being so totally immersed in a twenty-year-old part of my life, but it wasn't a grief-for-lost-youth thing either, I'm rather at peace with my long-evaporatied teenage years.
The closest thing I can think of is that I kind of feel bad for them. I know that probably doesn't makse sense, but it's the closest I can get at the moment. Something about how I'm back there, listening to all these songs like those days are back, but it's like I know they're not back and the songs don't. I know what happens to these acts, I know which of them die, which of them break up, which of them never have a hit again, I know that the whole era that these things are part of ends and goes on to other things. Maybe this is the crux of it: so much of the enjoyment of that sort of music is that you're living happily in the moment, and here I was, increasingly aware that I wasn't living in the moment, I was artificially recreating a long-dead moment instead.
I didn't rip the headphones off and burst into tears or anything, but there was a definite sombre edge to the thing when I ejected the last disc and went to bed.
Ah, well.
(But damn, it's good to have an actual recording of "Man Overboard" again. I'd almost given up hope of finding one.)
maxi:
dude i am more than familiar with Pi, i can't stand the part with the drill at the end, a lil squeemish for that, My ex Husband loved that movie, he actually purchased it...