The Honesty of 90s Lead-Singer Rock 'Dancing'

I am an 80s kid, I lip-synced to Madonna and Fresh Prince at sleepovers, I wore neon legwarmers, and I crimped my hair. I watched Sunday morning cartoons and was scarred by Bowie's pants in Labyrinth.  I loved Return of the Jedi best based solely on the Ewoks.

I was a kid in the 80s. But I was a teenager in the 90s, and that's when I fell in love with music.

Recently my room-mate and I went on a 90s-music-video-binge. On this particular occasion it was sparked by the mention of Train's first-time-around hit Meet Virginia, and how much better it was than their recent Hey Soul Sister. Now admittedly this opinion is largely based on Meet Virginia having a time and a place for us, a sense of nostalgia, but it is also because the lead singer just looks creepy in the newer video! No, its not because he is older, its not because he looks like a messed-up version of Uncle Jesse on Full House, its because of his dancing.

Despite their recent rebirth, Train is a 90s band. The lead singer is a 90s singer. He should dance like he's a 90s singer in a 90s band, not all choreographed and slow and smooth! The 90s, especially Alternative Rock in the 90s, was not about smooth dance moves (unless you were the Backstreet Boys, whose dance moves were... well slightly more smooth I guess?). 90s Alternative Rock 'Dancing' was all about the grab-the-mic-walk-back-and-forth. Simple? Sure. Kinda dumb looking? Usually. Honest? Most definitely. These guys were singers, not spokesmen, not fashion models, not marketing creations. They were there to sing- not the most groundbreaking, innovative, creative songs in the world, but songs that were about what they were about. Songs about speeding down the highway, songs about recreational drug use, songs about breakin' up and feelin' bad about it. Songs about life. Average, everyday, un-choreographed life.

That's what everyone says right- about the music of their generation? That it was so much more honest, so much more awesome, so much more than 'this crap kids listen to now-a-days.' Except that that's not what I'm saying at all- I like much of the music 'kids listen to now-a-days,' in fact I absolutely adore quite a lot of it! Kate Nash wasn't around when I was a teenager, nor were the Decemberists. Most of the bands I listen to hadn't even met each other pre-2000. But most of them are also magical- they tap into the deeper unseen bits of the dust of the universe and turn it into melancholia, beautiful, and heart-pounding odes to the wonder of everything. That is not what 90s music was about. It was about Rock. It was about fast driving, and parties, and stealin' your best friend's girl. It was about being a 90s teenager, even if you weren't a teenager like that at all.

And it was about honest dancing. It was about mosh pits and jumping and waving your hands in the air while you got covered in sweat that wasn't yours, and ducked so you didn't get an errant shoe in the face. You can see it in all kinds of 90s music videos (from back when Much Music actually still played music videos...), the kinds of videos teenyboppers like Miley Cyrus and Justin Beiber try to replicate all the time. Promise by eve6, Third Eye Blind's Semi-Charmed Life, or The Oaf by Big Wreck all fit the bill- awkward rock dudes with guitars (or basses) stomping around, grabbing their mic stands, taking two steps forward and two steps back, singing their hearts out, lookin' kinda dumb and surprisingly sexy.

Maybe it isn't super-innovative. Maybe it isn't magical, or beautiful or awe-inspiring. But it is honest. Simple, straightforward, and honest. Its my music as much as any of what I listen to now, and I still love it every bit as much as I did back then. Which is a lot.

Soul-Time-Sing-A-Long

I love to sing along with songs. You know this about me (and possibly about yourselves!) though I don't think I wrote that quite properly... it should read:

I LOVE to sing along with songs!!! 

There are many things that make me happy, but this would be top five, maybe even top three.... actually more like top two. I love it so very very much. Very much.

There is something about singing in the car specifically.... in the summer, windows rolled down, driving way over the speed limit, with the music so loud your ears are ringing and singing so loudly that your voice goes hoarse (I actually once sang so enthusiastically to 'Bicycle Race' by Queen while on the way to work that I lost my voice and had to write things down for the whole day...) and I can't even put into words how much joy this brings me. I have tried on several occasions and just never seem to be able to quite capture it... However, on a recent road-trip I re-heard one of my all time favourite songs (I'm not afraid to admit it, its uber 90s alternative, and not exactly the most profound thing ever, but I can't help it, it speaks to my soul!) and was reminded of all of the things I love about singing in the car. As cheese as it is, this experience is so fully encapsulated in Open Road Song that I feel the need to block-quote it...

"I crack a window and feel the cool air cleanse my every pore, as I pour my poor heart out to a radio song that's patient and willing to listen, my volume drowns it out. Yeah but that's okay, 'cuz I sound better than him anyway, any day. Yeah my voice is sweet as salt. I search for comfort and I find it where I found it many times before, though times before can be forgotten..."

Its the singing-along part! The you-drowning-out-the-music part!  The finding-comfort-in-pouring-your-heart-out part!

Back in high school all of my car-songs needed to be of a certain type to be able to 'work'- loud, fast, rock. Thats's what car music was to me, but my car-music tastes have broadened vastly in the interim... From Sons and Daughters by the Decemberists to Valley Town by Elliott Brood they have widened to include songs that paint sweeping vistas, that use intricate harmonies and gut-grabbing melodies, not just those that are loud and fast. And yet the all important lyrical factor has remained unchanged. I know many people who would disagree with me on this, but lyrics are as important to a song as the melody, the production values, or the instruments its played on.

I sing along with songs. You need good lyrics to sing along to, and I need to sing along for a song to be real to me. Singing along is how songs seep into my soul and become an inseparable part of me. Its how they transport me in time (Semi-Charmed Life), its how they make me homesick (Oh Alberta), its how they make my heart burst (Wake Up)...

Two of my current favourites are Ghosts by Laura Marling and Gentleman by Said the Whale. Neither are all epic, neither are all loud, neither are what one might call all hard-core... but both have absolutely sweet and beautiful lyrics that melt my insides when I hear them and even more so when I sing along.

Whether the song is quietly beautiful or heart-thumpingly exciting- that feeling of flying down the open road, singing at the top of your lungs.... perfection.

New Year, New Music, New Blog

I've recently been re-organizing my life. I moved back home (well, not back home as in "into my parents' house," actually not even in the same city as them, but when you've lived three provinces away for the last ten years, living only five hours from where you grew up feels an awful lot like home!). I changed jobs. I started painting again. And I decided to re-aquaint myself with music.

Unlike many music lovers, I was not born into it. I didn't sit in my crib listening to obscure Ramones tracks, or buy my first single at eleven... I grew up on The Monkees, Simon and Garfunkel, Abba, CCR, and Queen. I'm pretty sure the first CD I ever bought was the Lion King soundtrack, and I didn't have a boom box (yes, that's what they were called back then) until I was in ninth grade. But when I fell in love with music, I  fell in love with music.

I still remember the first time I was the only one who knew all the lyrics to a song (Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind), the first time I got a speeding ticket because I was driving to the music (Open Road Song by Eve6), the first festival I went to (Edgefest), the first time I fell in love with banjo (The Oaf by Big Wreck)... [Don't be too harsh on me, it was the 90s, and I was very much an Alternative kind o' gal when it came to music- I mean what else was I gonna listen to-The Backstreet Boys? shudder...]. I remember how good it felt having a song to go along with everything... and I remember discovering how crappy it felt when I let my music-listening fall by the wayside.

So no more of that. New Town, New Concerts. I hereby vow to never again let a band I like play within three hours of my house without going to see them. My life may be filled with Kraft dinner, but it will also be filled with awesome.

Welcome to A Mountain of Song

The road divides ahead
Just wide awake in bed
Unaware of suspicious feelings happening again

His love went south, and he'll go west
A mountain of song couldn't fill that hole in his chest
That she left when she said that he was like the rest

So get up and get out
What're you down about?
Put it back on the shelf
Just have to go without again

So get up and get out
What're you down about?
Put it back on the shelf
Just have to go without again

The road divides ahead
Just wide awake in bed
Put it back on the shelf
Just have to go without again