Twice
a year, the internet erupts with 'serious' music fans denouncing what
they are watching on the television. The Brit Awards, and the
Eurovision song contest. Personally, I like both of them, as I am not
15 anymore and have finally gotten over myself.
The
problem with being a teenager (which I have not been for nearly 20
years now) is the crippling self-doubt and desperate desire to be
accepted on whatever terms you have chosen. I was never one to try to
fit in, but, ironically, in deliberately not fitting in I then had to
ensure I lived up to those conditions that I had set for myself. If
that makes sense.
This
problem is never more evident than when it comes to one's musical
preferences. Even now, upon hearing a song that I really really like,
my first instinct is to check who it is by, and which genre they fit
into, and whether I am allowed to like it or not (in case some cooler
kids in the playground laugh at me for my Kajagoogoo pencil case
again*). Which is a bit rich coming from somebody who proudly owns
records by Barry Manilow, Rupert Holmes and Cliff Richard. This came
to a head recently in the Totnes branch of Oxfam when I heard this
song:-
Holy
shitballs, that is really Abba, and really awesome
I
loved it, and asked the nice man behind the counter who it was, as I
don't have shazam,
or understand how it works and I suspect that the signal in Totnes is
not strong enough for such a thing to work. Imagine my mortification
when he told me it was Abba, the most ridiculed of all bands (by me,
I hasten to add). The poppiest of the poppy, the one that all the
mums have been dancing around their handbags to since the 70s, the
most despicably accessible music ever recorded – my sister likes
them for god's sake! How dare it be catchy and enjoyable for everyone
(joyless bollock-wranglers like myself excluded of course).
When
I started listening to Heavy Metal in the late 80s, I had
to pretend
that I had never liked Bros, Baltimora, Big Fun and Brother Beyond, a
few years later when I discovered Punk music I denied my love of
Poison,
Mötley
Crüe,
Skid
Row and
Whitesnake (and
never mind when I had to move on to Lard, The
Descendents,
Sub-Humans and ever more niche and obscure punk, dismissing the Sex
Pistols as 'lightweight').
When,
in 1996, I heard a catchy new song called 'Wannabe', and spent a good
week jigging about to it on the production line I was working on, I
found myself mortified to discover it was by a band aimed at pre-teen
girls. I shouldn't have been really, it's a fucking great song.
Because
fuck you, I like it
But
I am still second-guessing myself, I recently saw this performance on
Jools Holland, and loved it so much that I immediately ordered
the album.
I
wasn't sure if I liked it or hated it on first watching, always a
good sign
and
in the original french, for those of us who like that sort of thing
While
waiting for it I listened to the original french language version of
it on youtube for 5 days straight. I've always liked foreign language
music (including opera) possibly because I never really listened to
lyrics anyway. Not understanding what the words mean leaves you free
to enjoy the music more, rather than trying to work out what the
words are, and what they might be about. My lack of attention to
lyrics led the twelve year old me to believe that Pink Floyd's The
Wall was a tale of a country freeing itself from a tyrannical fascist
regime, until the film made me see it as the self-indulgent Roger
Waters wankfest it really is. Doesn't stop the songs being great; it
just means the concept is, as I have already said, a self-indulgent
wankfest. This could all be why my own songs have now been stripped
of any deeper meaning and are now the equivalent of Paul
McCartney's famous Scrambled Eggs (I prefer that version).
shameless
plug once again, sorry
Since
my copy of Chaleur
Humaine by Christine and the Queens has turned up, I have been
listening to it over and over and over again, like I haven't done for
ages with any record. I can fondly recall other records that got this
treatment, in 1991 I listened to Anarchy in the UK pretty much every
morning; Summer 1993 was punctuated by Creedence Clearwater Revival's
Pagan Baby in a similar way; A perfectly happy relationship of nearly
3 years broke up in 1996 because I couldn't stop listening to Steve
Miller's The Joker, and in its miserable aftermath I found almost
never-ending solace in Hey Jealousy by the Gin Blossoms on a
perpetual loop. (You will notice that none of this is particularly
music snobbish, but the White Noise's first album got similar
treatment at one point, and I listened to a lot of Grateful Dead
after that breakup.) However, in my thirties I have not felt the need
to play the same song over and over again. At least not until I heard
this: which I am. I am slightly unnerved that I have not heard it on
6 music once. Which means it is either on Radio 1 or 2 (I wouldn't
know) - which puts it into the wrong bracket for the personality I
have been desperately trying to project since I was 12 – or it is
not on any radio station, in which case it is obscure french pop
music that nobody else is listening to, and my teenage self approves.
Seriously,
if you're going to be a depressed teenager in the 90s, listen to this
song every day
It
is this kind of obsessive reasoning that can really stop you just
being happy if you are, by your very nature, a music snob. Which I
have been accused of enough times to know I probably am. Although I'm not really, if I'm honest. I like Justin Bieber's new music, I think a lot of Lady
Gaga's stuff is absolutely sublime. I like Kesha, and most of my
favourite songs are from Sesame Street. I am a long way from cool,
and I don't know why my subconscious still worries if my music taste
is reflecting the right image. Somewhere inside is a thirteen year
old kid who is coping with being laughed at for being a bit weird by
stretching that weirdness as far as he can – colouring his hair in
with marker pens and wearing lime green (with gold pinstripes no less) charity shop suits while
listening to krautrock
and the Residents. If I could tell him one thing it would be that it
is ok to like the Residents and Tiffany at the same time.
Tiffany's first (and as far as i am aware, only) album is one of the only cassettes I didn't throw away when I moved
house 3 years ago, and I only kept about 10 out of something like
500. I am on my third copy having worn the other two out.
I
still don't understand people who don't like the Residents
My
fear of pop music was finally exorcised when I was playing in a show
band that all enthused over Justin Timberlake, Destiny's Child and En
Vogue. All acts I had been treating with disdain in my official
position as an alternative, punky, gothy rock type. All great songs
(which I already knew in my head) and all great fun to play. Around
the same time I caved in and watched Eurovision after refusing to for
years. Like a lot of people I know, I had sneered at it for not being
worthy, not real music. As I watched these happy people dancing
around the stage in sheer abandonment (many of them in their native
tongues, bringing back my love of unintelligible lyrics) I realised
that that's the point of Eurovision (and Pop music's raison d'etre)
it isn't trying to change the world. It's a bit of fun, a small ray
of joy in a world filled
with awful, a way to bring a continent of disparate
people together in mutual vitriol over the pretentious and dreadful,
and wild joy over the utterly batshit insane. My only regret is that
it took me so long to get over myself, stop pretending to like REO
Speedwagon 'ironically' and just sing along with Can't Fight This
Feeling with the car windows wound down and tears streaming from my
eyes (which, deep down, we all want to do).
There
are two types of people in this world, those who admit they love the
speedwagon, and liars.
*disclaimer
– I never actually had a kajagooo pencil case, I got laughed at for
a Bon Jovi cassette, but that makes me sound a lot cooler than I
was/am.
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