Way way way back when, MTV used to actually play music. I guess I just caught the tail end of it. 10 years ago, when I was recovering from my brain surgery and on enough pain killers that literally the only thing I could move were my fingers occasionally and sometimes my dick would get embarrassingly hard when I wasn't expecting it, the remote got stuck on MTV. And every night at exactly 11:30, and every 20 minutes after 1:30 until 7:30, I would hear them play: I am still not sure if I love it, or if I hate it. On one hand, I have the wonderful memory of that beautifully catchy song waking me up in the middle of the night, in the midst of all my pain, basically saying "hey, the TV is still on bitch!" My chances of losing all my hearing after the surgery were basically 50/50, so I was just glad I could hear something. But then again, that song is.... fucking awful. Focus: The song that brings you back to the moment. What's the song, and what's the moment? Alt. Focus: It's not just songs, sometimes it's scents, scenic views, something you read. Deja vu is funny sometimes. What brings you back to a certain point? Why?
Any Blink 182 song, but if I had to pick one it would Josie or Dammit. The whole Dude Ranch album was my middle school and early high school playlist. Any time I listen to one of their songs, it immediately brings me back.
Music was huge in high school, especially since I was around when MTV and the Canadian equivalent first started. Any of these songs bring back high school in a flash: Van Halen: Jump or Panama. Triumph: Magic Power. Phil Collins: In the air tonight. Aerosmith: Dude Looks like A Lady Kim Mitchell: Go For a Soda Living Colour: Cult of Personality And tons more.
It's crazy how that middle school age 12-14 seems to be the one that ingrains in everyone's mind. Any of the pop hits from then will take me right back. Third eye blind "jumper," eve 6 "inside out," etc also there are a handful of rap hits from 2003-4 that put me right back in my freshman year dorm. Each case it wasn't "my" music as I listened to totally different stuff in each period not related to the ingrained songs.
There are so many of these. Like others a lot of them are centered around high school when I think our emotional attachment to music is strongest, but also for me at least it was pre-ipod years so your choices for music had to be a lot more deliberate. I was just telling someone how strongly I associated Cake with driving around in my first car. I had a Cake mix (hah, cake mix) that I just left in my car because I didn't listen to it too often elsewhere but it was perfect for driving, so now whenever I hear Cake all I can picture is the road I lived off of in front of me. The Garden State soundtrack was always playing in the high school art room. There was a trail where railroad tracks used to be that I'd walk the three miles from my house into town to hang out with my friends before I had a license, and I'd listen to Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor a lot during those walks so it's hard not to see that trail when I hear them today. I started listening to Portishead right around the time who I wanted to be kind of started crystalizing in my mind. I can barely listen to "The Beggar" by Mos Def or "The Body Breaks" by Devendra Banhart anymore because of how closely they're associated with an ex. There are a couple Bjork, Mike Patton, and Deftones songs that will always remind me of another ex. Same with "Maps" by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Then there are also albums that will forever remind me of being in the car with my dad, especially on long road trips, and talking with him or holding the liner notes I'd worn completely down in my lap: 12 Deadly Cyns by Cyndi Lauper, Sheryl Crow's eponymous album and "Tuesday Night Music Club," Annie Lennox's "Diva" and "Medusa," Eurythmics' "Revenge," John Hiatt's "Bring the Family" and "Walk On." Plus anytime Louis and Ella are playing I think of us preparing for a party, usually around the holidays, going back to when I was very little and doing the dancing with my dad while my feet were on his feet thing. I would also ROCK THE FUCK OUT to The Temptations so much whenever he tried to play them during these times that he had to stop playing them because I wasn't being any help. Oh, and my best friend's mom who was basically my mom LOVED to come screeching up to pick us up from somewhere very public BLASTING "Crazy Train" to embarrass us and now I can't hear it without cringing and hearing her cackling because of how Damn pleased she was with herself.
I hear a song from The Doors and immediately go back to high school wrestling practice. Head coach was a huge Doors fan. I can't hear any of their classic stuff without thinking of that wrestling room.
Ozzy's Tinkertrain was the lead song on my workout tape when I was playing rugby... if I hear that song, it's like I've just stepped into the weight room and am motivating myself for a workout. These days, that's a rather funny concept.
Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt came out when I was in 5th grade and was the first album by a current popular band that I really got into. Gwen Stefani was my first really big celebrity crush. There are so many other artists from that time period who take me back to middle school when I hear them: Bush, Third Eye Blind, Matchbox 20, Spice Girls, Jewel, Chumbawamba, Smash Mouth, Sugar Ray, The Offspring, Brandy and Monica...the list could go on. The Marshall Mathers LP came out a few months before I started high school and I listened to it nonstop. Thankfully that phase didn't last long. Dookie, Sublime, and Enema of the State were my favorite albums throughout high school. I am not big into Green Day or Sublime anymore, but I still love Blink. A few other bands whose music reminds me of high school are Fuel, Staind, Kid Rock, New Found Glory, SR-71, Sum 41, Alien Ant Farm, and (gasp) Nickelback, Limp Bizket, and Creed. At least Creed was the one band whose hype I never bought into! Dashboard Confessional and Modest Mouse both remind me of the start of college, since Spider-Man 2 and "Float On" had just come out. And I'm stoked about seeing Modest Mouse for the first time in concert a week from Sunday!
A great band, and I fucked it up for myself so now I can't stand them. My degree is in public speaking, which is funny enough they give you an actual degree for that instead of like a participation ribbon. Unfortunately, that degree required a large amount of art credits, and I can't draw or paint or anything, so somehow I stumbled into a country western dancing class. And the instructor for that class was a backup dancer for Randy Rogers Band. So that's all he played. And a few semesters later I got a minor in Country/Western Dancing. Because I can't draw. And now I can't listen to Randy Rogers Band anymore either.
Offtopic: you know how MTV premiered with "Video Killed The Radio Star"? Well when the millennials take it over and decide to play videos again, this needs to be the first one: Bonus: pretty fucking sure they sampled this song for the Contra videogames. Focus: for me, those years were all hip hop. I remember being sick and tired of "M.e.t.h.o.d. Man" because Hot97 played it every single morning, right at the time my radio alarm went off. 36 Chambers, Doggystyle, Ready to Die, they are my reliable time machine. Fuck, if only we knew how good we had it.
George Michael's Careless Whisper IMMEDIATELY takes me back to when my family and I were living in remote Indonesia. It was an isolated community built around INCO's nickel mine and a subsequent construction project for expansion. This was way before the internet, and we only had power on some days anyway, so the ability to play any kind of western music meant that someone had to fly in with actual CDs. For some reason that song was on a "Hits of the 80s" record that someone must have owned, and it became immensely popular whenever there were gatherings or dinners or whatnot. It's crazy because the second I hear the opening bars I have a visceral recollection of the temperature, the climate, the location, everything. RIP, George Michael. You and your cocaine habit were too good for this world.
I was just browsing through the "What I'm Listening To" thread, and saw a post by @Rush-O-Matic - so he may relate to this one. When I was touring with a band 10 years ago, we would usually play colleges, little restaurants - but every few months, we would play a four-night run at Whiskey River in Macon, Georgia. Whiskey River is its own dimension - walking through the doors is like walking into the weird-ass red curtain room in Twin Peaks - if that room had ceilings high enough to create its own atmosphere from sweat condensation. It's a giant room, with a wrap-around balcony upper bar area. White, Black, Hispanic, everybody is there. It's one big giant smoking-permitted room, and we'd play four nights in a row. By the fourth night, I was usually dry heaving after every set from the cigarette smoke. The sound was usually terrible and the dance floor was empty for our first two sets. We'd play county and rock, and then when our set ended it was bass-pumping hip hop, and the place was flooded. But by our last set, we were playing all the hits and people were nice and drunk. We'd finish with "Devil Went Down to Georgia" (the band leader was a fiddle player, and she was damn good), or "Sweet Child of Mine," or a crazy medley that ended with the outro to "Freebird," and right after we were done, every single night: It never failed. Last song of our set, then DUN-DUN. DUN-DUN. AAAAAAWWWWW YEEEEEEEAAAAAHHH And it was like a writhing, smelly orgy of nastiness on the dance floor. More legs than teeth. Every time I hear that song I remember the cigarette smell and dry heave a little bit. Other memorable moments: -Our guitar player was from Chile, and was usually called "the Spaniard" by the old guys at the bar -One old guy asked our lead singer if he could play her fiddle, and made sure to explain, "by fiddle, I mean your vagina." -A redneck couple slow dancing while another women danced solo around them hollering "THAT'S MY BABY DADDY RIGHT THERE!!" -Every night after we played, we'd go to Waffle House. There were two of them, at the same block, across from each other, and I believe they were voluntarily segregated.
Everything he says is true. Did anybody die any of the nights you were there? I have been there, but it's been a looong time. It's closed down, it's reopened and closed and moved 100 yards down the street to a new building, and reopened and experimented as a comedy club, and I think is currently still open. It is indeed a bizarre hybrid of people and themes.* It's awful. You should totally go, if you're ever (unfortunately) in Macon, GA. Also, it's only about 1/2 mile off Interstate 75, so the next time you're driving through, stop in. *Macon claims Otis Redding, Little Richard, the Allman Brothers and Jason Aldean. Plus, Mike Mills & Bill Berry and Young Jeezy all spent time in Macon. So, imagine if you dumped all that musical culture into a bowl of beer and Jager shots and there you go.
This is the paradox of Whiskey River. It is revolting, but you feel like you're witnessing something truly unique. Nobody died when I was there, but there were many fights in the parking lot with guns drawn. This was the first song they played after our first set. The Whiskey River theme, in my mind:
Not to derail this thread, but . . . 10 years ago, there was a group playing Whiskey River called The Rehab Band, which featured a lead singer named Demun Jones. He now has a solo "career" that may or may not turn into anything. But, if you've ever wondered what happens when you dump banjo licks and a white dude rapping country lyrics into a blender, here are some samples: Spoiler: Spoiled to not clog the thread with videos
Just heard "I crashed my car into the bridge, I DONT CARE, I LUV EET!" It's like I'm right back with the borderline girl I hooked up with from my work. She blasted it non stop. Really encapsulated her personality. That was a wild ride. Also any Tony Hawk songs.
I usually get onto a kick where I'll listen to one particular band pretty much exclusively for several months at a time. In no particular order, here are some examples: Velvet Revolver - Summer of 2005 Classic Aerosmith - Summer of 2002 Monster Magnet - 2006 until 2012 Alice in Chains "Facelift"album - Spring of 2005 Nirvana - Winter of '05 Led Zeppelin - Senior year of high school Metallica - Junior year of high school EDIT: There is one song that instantly makes me want to do cocaine. It's a country song, and I'll bet rep points that no one will ever guess it.