19 June 2001
Look, don't blame me that she hardly ever posts here and I have too much free time. Just relax and don't fight it.
Why did nobody tell me that there was good music from before the late eighties? Not that I consider the late eighties to have been any good. I'm embarrased to know all the words to the Prince Greatest hits albums, and the dance moves to Madonna pre everybody-loves-me-I'll-make-a-book-with-some-friends mode. (92 was it?) Bands like Jesus Jones, DeMob, Depeche Mode... oh, I shudder to think about some of them. (One word America, Tiffany! Followed by New Kids On... don't make me go any further)
There is some stuff I'm proud of... the KLF/Jams/Timelords, early Prodigy stuff before they let Keith sing, U2's Joshua Tree, and one song by Prefab Sprout (whom I always confuse with Toad The Wet Sprocket). Am I even in the right decade anymore? It all seems so long ago.
Anyway, how did the awful eighties ever come about after so much good stuff? Hendrix and Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Wilson Picket, Spencer Davis... and best of all The Who... with foundations like this you'd have expected rock to have thrived... Van Halen, Aerosmith and Queen would have led the charge. The kids would have been alright, instead of being over-powered by electronica and mod rock and lulled into a synthetic pacification.
Take for example, the "Summer Anthem" contest. Every year there has to be a pre-Ibiza anthem, a during Ibiza anthem everyone thinks will be remembered and the true underground hit that becomes the post-Ibiza anthem. (Don't know what, where, or who Ibiza is? Count yourself lucky)
The summer starts with your Venga Boys "Going to Ibiza" and your Alice Deejays, works through the summer carpet-bombing us with Jakatta "American Dream" and Who Cares Who Let The Dogs Out?!!
Eventually however we get to the end of the summer and Paul Oakenfold's done a decent remix of Delerium's Silence, or we get the remix everyone wants to bring close to their lips... Tori Amos' Professional Widow. But then everything gets stale as the autumn drags in... nobody wants to hear Faithless' Insomnia anymore, everybody has had enough of William Orbit and nobody can remember what the difference between the various Ministry albums is...
I hope to god we hit a good patch again. Rock was great, then got dilluted with video in the eighties, Underground was the scene in the Nineties but has been reprocessed with 50% extra remixing in the later stages of the decade, and hopefully there's something good on the horizon now that we're firmly into the next decade.
At least I'll never have to listen to Vanilla Ice again.
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... the online home and (not very) alter(ed)-ego of Ann McMeekin, a recently freelance Web Accessibility Consultant.
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