Anytime anyone asks me what's my favourite type of music, I usually run through the obvious genres that make up the majority of my ipod playlists, which is basically every genre save for new school rap, and jam bands. What I never, or at least very rarely, say is the truth.
Early nineties college pop.
My childhood was thick with musical influence in that me and my best friend back then, Katrina, both had older sisters who all had very different tastes in music. My sisters were into Joni Mitchell and The Dead. And Katrina had a sister that was a bottomless resource for all things hair metal. Katrina's parents would spend evenings sitting outside, her father reading the newspaper, her mother crocheting fruit-shaped oven mitts (which I would very much like the pattern to, thanks.), and always with the local country music station at a comforting level coming from a radio that was set in the window sill right over their heads. And, in my house, there was always someone singing.
But it wasn't until my sister, Jenna, started working at a record store at the mall and bringing home studio-released demo cassetts that I think I finally felt comfortable enough to adopt pop music as a type of music that I could like all on my own and by myself. It was a fairly grown-up thing for an eleven-year-old, I think.
Musically, I had made it through my first decade of life unscathed with little more than some NKOTB trading cards to define what I liked. CDs had only been available for about four years before I was able to save up enough allowance to purchase one or two. (I just threw up in my mouth a little.) But, through it all remained these tapes.
I can remember being thirteen-years-old, about to head out one summer afternoon to rollerblade to the park, or whatever the hell it was that kid's did in '93, but being halted right in my tracks by the video for Rancid's "Salvation" playing on the television in the living room of my parent's house. I remember no one was watching it. It was just on. Earlier that day, I was most likely reading the lyrics to Dr. Dre's "The Chronic", or laughing about Snoop Dogg's entire debut album (not ironically). But seeing this video changed me. All of the sudden, the cassett tapes stayed in a drawer and I got some new friends that went to shows, and listened to bands like Richard Hell and The Voidoids. Pop music, although not entirely abandoned, became neglected.
Years later, when owning my first car with a tape deck, these cassetts resurfaced, and were enjoyed mostly by myself because, just like I don't like The Goonies because I didn't see it until I was twenty-seven, anyone who wasn't there when Material Issue's
Destination Universe was released just wouldn't understand.
Early nineties college pop still doesn't make up even a third of my current musical selections, but I can still appreciate it's sound. And at the risk of sounding
unbearably hokey, I really do see the tragedy in it, and the really great songs can still make me cry. These bands had little more than pegged jeans and broken hearts, and buried somewhere underneath all the fashion scarves and low-cut Chuck Taylors, there's a realness you just can't find in Fall Out Boy.
Here's a few suggestions, if you're interested:
Material Issue - any album. The frontman killed himself by inhaling the exhaust of his
moped. Start with Destination Universe.
The Pleasure Theives - Simple Escape. Skip ahead to "About You", then "Pictures of Madness"
Buffalo Tom - Big Red Letter Day. Starts with "Sodajerk" and is just good all the way
through. Except for "Late at Night". The song's just bad.