Perhaps this is not expressed in my posts, because I bitch and talk about boys a lot, but I am a HUGE fan of music. It’s not that I forgot this little fact, but of late it feels like there’s not much music worth talking about. I mean, most of it are rehashes of old songs.
The urge to blog about music came about when I was going through my CD collection (yes, I still have one of those). I was reminded of a time when 80% of my monthly allowance went to buying CDs and most of my time was spent eyeballing MTV and Channel [V]. While I have tonnes of albums, which have now been chucked in a storage box near my mom’s bathroom (thanks to my nomad status), a few artistes are capable of giving me goosebumps, even after years of not listening to them. In no particular order…well, maybe in a little bit of an order:
1. Blink-182.
I owe a lot to these guys. Thanks to them, I got out of my ridiculous post-adolescent-chin-dragging-on-the-ground phase. Seriously, how could one not lighten up after hearing a guy warble, ‘we started making out, she took off my pants, but then I turned on the TV’? To top it all off, Travis Barker’s drumming took pop-punk to a whole new level. I’m no genius, but even I knew he’s a fucking ace with his drums. They’re the reason I told everyone that I wanted to work in San Diego, and go for the Vans Warped Tour. Their music video was the reason I told my friend to get off the phone when she was calling me from Johor via a payphone. In around 2004, they decided to go on a little hiatus. Was I disappointed? A little. But then, I preferred that they went away with dignity, rather than forcing themselves to come out what would ultimately be insincere crap. In 2009, Blink-182 announced at the Grammys that they were reuniting. Guess who was squealing like a little girl in front of the TV?
2. Jason Lo.
Bloody fucker. That’s what I thought when I was listening to his last album, ‘The Fall’. He’s been so under the radar that I Googled him, expecting to find a friggin’ obituary. This guy was my hope for the Malaysian music scene. I was banking on him to be recognized internationally, I kid you not. Three albums, and I love all of them. From what I’ve read, he’s been working with the suits and ties these days. It’s a damned shame, really. Can’t blame him though, he’s got a family to feed. I will always reserve my biggest SIGH for him.
3. Jimmy Eat World.
I got my uncle to buy me their breakthrough album ‘Bleed American’ (which was renamed to a self-titled album after the Sept. 11th attacks) from the UK because there was no sight of it in KL. I even patiently waited for him to return home with it. I only stopped short of rummaging through his luggage to get my grubby 16-year old paws on it. I was not disappointed. There’s something about their songs that strike a chord (pun not intended) in my heart. Must be their choice of words, abstract enough to relate to, but specific enough to articulate a feeling. Unfortunately, after coming to Moscow, I’ve not really kept up with their progress as artists, so I’m a bit out of it with them.
4. Linkin Park.
My Additional Math muses. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a complete sloth when it comes to Math, but listening to Chester Bennington screaming his lungs out made doing my homework less painful. More importantly, what I liked about them was their clean lyrics. I recall an interview with Rolling Stone circa 2001 where they claimed that the reason there was no profanity in their songs was because they wanted to express feelings with more than just ‘fuck’. Their concert in Kuala Lumpur in 2003 was the first concert I had been to, and it was on the night before my A-Levels Chemistry paper. My God, it was so worth it. Fast forward to 2007, and their album is littered with bleeps. My first reaction was, ironically enough, to exclaim, “WHAT THE FUCK??!” I was thoroughly disappointed. The band had mellowed down plenty musically, but I reckoned that was because of Bennington recovering after removing some nasty stuff off his vocal chords. Screaming can do that. This year, Linkin Park is releasing a new album, and from what I’ve been hearing, it sounds promising. I heard screaming sans bleeps, for one thing. I’m taking it as a good sign.
Seeing that my interest has been resurrected, I’m guessing this won’t be the last post about music. Yay!