You know you’re getting old
You know you’re getting old when one of the alternative stations in town plays 90s at noon. Much the way that other stations play 80s lunch hour.
What does this say about our generation’s music? Already over? Yes.
OK, I have maintained for years that I don’t listen to music past 1998, though I have some exceptions.
That’s because there’s a dry spell of good music and good new musicians. The only way to listen to music now comes from word of mouth, because we can’t rely on commercial radio to play music without agendas.
Some of you much cooler people have iPods, too. I could be cranky about that and declare that I don’t want one of those anyway, but part of me secretly yearns for new gadgets. Once I’m financially more stable, I might break down. I might not. Don’t tell anyone.
You know you’re getting old when you’ve still hung on to your last flannel shirt, a jacket actually. And your old work boots. What of it?
I know wearing a flannel shirt and work boots would just seem so 1994. But I keep them anyway. Don’t know why. They are both useful items, on their own.
I of course have most of my old CDs. And Pearl Jam’s Alive is playing on the radio station right now. The 90s can’t be bad if it included all of Pearl Jam’s best work.
And to make myself feel somewhat better, the station also plays some of those older songs during the rest of the day. So it’s not like they’re only trotted out once a day, lovingly polished and put back in their drawer.
One of my friends has maintained that alternative is in fact dead. I’d just about agree with that. Alternative, in the form I loved, is dead. It’s really just been folded right back into rock. Alternative was outside the mainstream, and as soon as it became the mainstream, there was no alternative.
But now that I live in a town with three stations playing so-called alternative music, I can see where alternative is still useful.
Now the real alternative, again, is stuff you find off the beaten path. Indie, I guess. Hard to find indie, especially when you’re unhip like me. But word of mouth, and again, the internet.
It’s time for you to go alt-country. That’s the only alternative left. . . for music lovers these days. Somehow I don’t think I can see you making THAT move.
alt-country … sounds like an oxymoron to me. I think they like to rape them alt-country cowboys down there in Texas.
Funny, though, I did read in the shorterWashington Post Express (this is the free paper they pass out to commuters at the bus and metro stations) that the old singer for the metal band “Poison”, Bret Michaels, has made the move to alt-country. This is a guy who used to wear lipstick and spray gallons of Aquanet on his hair. Yeah. Alt-country.
Seriously, you are bringing back memories here. Flannel shirts and work boots. I loved Nirvana myself; I didn’t care as much for Pearl Jam.
What’s really depressing is to see Time-Life hawking its CD collection, “Greatest Hits of the Nineties,” on cable TV … and then the next info-mercial is for “Christy Lane sings all your favorite Christmas memories.” You know you’re old when your music winds up in a Time-Life CD collection.
All I can say is, eat, drink, be merry while you’re young, for youth doesn’t last long.
Alt country, Tod, no thanks. Some of the stuff you’ve turned me on to, I dig. Like Wilco, though you’ve said yourself that isn’t even alt country any more. Give me some great, melancholic, incomprehensible rock any day.
Yeah, Matt, it’s a sad day when your music is offered by Time-Life. I got furious when VH1 was playing its 90s retrospectives. I was like hey! that wasn’t that long ago! Cut it out!
Another one of my friends just pointed out to me that because I just turned 29, I’ll spend the next year having people think I’m lying about my age.
I enjoy listening to the songs of my youth, and some of the memories they evoke. Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, the Offspring. Each have certain songs that give me certain feelings again. Memory association is a wonderful thing.
Your friend is right, miraculously some people never age beyond 29 years.