In Defense Of Bands We've Loved
By Kevin Robinson in Arts & Entertainment on Sep 17, 2010 4:30PM
With the Dave Matthews Band set to descend upon Chicago for a two-night stand at Wrigley Field this weekend, the writers here at Chicagoist got to talking about bands and music we've loved for a time but that years later left us wondering about our own taste in music. We've knocked bands like DMB around in the past on this site and have some taken heat for it. But the thing is, for all the snark, there are bands - like DMB - that did at one time or another appeal to us even if now we feel we're too cool for school. We've all got a few questionable musical skeletons in our closets, musical moments that spoke to us at one point or another, but that leave us scratching our heads now, wondering what it really says about us as consumers of pop-culture. So consider this your call to arms, reader, an opportunity to unburden yourself of those awkward moments of taste and experience that led you to the cultural point you're at today.
After the jump, our staff describes their love of Garth Brooks, Third Eye Blind, Phish, and many, many more.
Laura M. Browning: I came of age in Dallas when nouveau country music ruled the airwaves, and I fell in love with the pop-twang of Garth Brooks, Reba McEntire, and Trisha Yearwood. (I even named my Golden Retriever Reba. I got her the summer I turned 14. I'm not apologizing.) I was 13 or 14 the first time I saw Garth Brooks in concert. I convinced my mom to drive me to Blockbuster Music at 4 a.m. so I could camp out in line for tickets to the three-show stint at Texas Stadium (a show which later became the 1992 "This Is Garth Brooks" VHS, which of course I bought because I was so sure I'd see myself in the audience). At the show, my friends and I had a huge sign that said something like "We <3 Garth," and as Garth Brooks flew over Texas Stadium in a harness and fly wire, high-fiving his fans in the nosebleed section, he saw our sign, thumped his chest, and pointed at us. AT US. GARTH BROOKS HEARTED US.
I think most of my old country CDs are in storage at my parents' house, but I sneak onto YouTube more than I care to admit to get my fix. I'm pretty sure I still have the piano music for Garth Brooks' "The Dance," the corners of which have been thumbed thousands of times. I don't know if it's just nostalgia, but there is nothing like singing at the top of your lungs to Jo Dee Messina's "I'm Alright," Reba McEntire's "Fancy," or Trisha Yearwood's "She's in Love With the Boy." And even if they have to run away, she's gonna marry that boy someday...
Kim Bellware: I’ve sometimes thought it’s counter intuitive, but if my record collection is proof of anything, it’s that liking “good” music doesn’t preclude you from also enjoying, uh, not so good music. Case in point: in my youth, Third Eye Blind’s self-titled record (you know the one that had all those hits like “Semi-Charmed Life,” “Jumper,” “Graduate” and “How’s It Going To Be”) got played just as much as Yo La Tengo’s (ONE OF THE BEST BANDS IN THE WORLD!!!) same-year release, “I Can Hear The Heart Beating As One.” I really dug that 3eb record and still feel nostalgic and rowdy whenever I hear that “Doot doot DOOT! Doot doot doot doot!” The fact that lead singer Stephan Jenkins is totally skeevy, or the fact that the band had some seriously disturbing lyrics (“Those little red panties/They pass the test/Slide up around the belly/Face down on the mattress”? Gross) didn’t deter me from liking that band. It didn’t even deter me from, two years later, still liking them (or at least their single, “Never Let You Go”). As they say, there’s no accounting for taste. I find that idiom helpful, because I also can’t account for why my high school cross country racing mix included songs by Faith Hill, The Red Hot Chili Peppers and The Bare-fucking-naked Ladies.
Kevin Robinson: I remember the first time I heard Galileo - it was at the end of an episode of Going to Extremes. The main characters were drinking wine from the bottle around a fire on the beach, talking about life and love or something else that seemed profound to my 15-year old mind. I tracked down a tape of Rites of Passage, and something about that album spoke to me. Was it Amy Ray and Emily Saliers harmonizing on “Love Will Come to You”? Sara Lee’s deep bass line on “Three Hits”? Exotic, worldly instruments paired with modern folk-rock and profound lyrics? All of those mixed with a sound I had never heard before and that suggested a world bigger than a Catholic high school in Northwest Indiana, a place where creativity, passion, love and independence could coalesce into a meaningful life of excitement and purpose. Among the first albums that I owned and loved, Rites of Passages is still part of my CD collection (it’s on my iPod!), and it held a special place in my CD player throughout high school - long nights were spent laying in the dark in my bedroom, quietly singing along to the songs that I knew by heart.
Maybe because I felt left out and awkward, like I didn’t belong with my peers in high school, that album, and their follow-up, Swamp Ophelia, live in a special place in my heart, even today in the post-Lilith Fair world of female-driven folk-rock. And while the Indigo Girls lost me at Shaming of the Sun (too electric), sometimes I still like to sit in the dark of my living room, Rites of Passage on repeat on the stereo.
Karl Klockars: I don’t really have any good reason for why I stumbled into a moderate Britney Spears obsession in the late '90s, but I’m going to give it a shot. It’s because I’m Swedish. See, I have this theory about musical taste and how it relates to where you are in terms of latitude. It’s my belief that the Scandinavian nations spend a lot of time in unending darkness or near-constant sunlight, which is why Sweden is home to a shitload of black metal, and Aqua. I haven’t published this yet or had it peer-reviewed, but if anyone wants to find me a grant to investigate, feel free. Personally, my Swede/Finn background has graced me with a self-diagnosed case of SAD, and an affinity for both Cannibal Corpse and catchy pop music.
Anyways, I was working in a factory the first time I heard “Hit Me Baby (One More Time)” and I just stopped dead in my tracks. It was at that point that I knew that I’d be hearing this song for the rest of my life, and I was probably going to be okay with that. I’m not sure what my fellow meathead co-workers thought we were doing listening to the early “92.7 & 5” incarnation of Kiss FM on the job, but listening we were, and it was then that my Scandinavian pop-centric genetics kicked in. I didn’t learn until later that the record was produced and recorded by Max Martin (a Swede) and partially recorded in Sweden. I just knew that we as a culture were neck-deep in pop music, that a war was brewing between Britney and this Aguilera girl, and we were all going to have to take sides. I enthusiastically joined the Spears Army and never looked back.
I have, since then, paid good money to see Britney in the flesh, and I stand by my belief that despite the lipsyncing and backing tracks, it used to be a hell of a show. No, really. And I not only knew full well what I was doing, I also ignored my better nature and will still acknowledge an appreciation for Spears’ music. Yeah, the music. I can’t even cop a “but she was hot back then” attitude. You put a “Crazy” or a “(Oops) I Did It Again” on the radio, and despite hundreds of prior exposure, goddamn if I don’t still stick around.
Joe Erbentraut: There was a time, back before I'd discovered my gay root, that "rap metal" and "pop punk" were the genres defining many of the musical acts that lined my poster-covered teenage bedroom walls. I excitedly filled my calendar with shows like Ozzfest, Warped Tour, Good Charlotte and Taking Back Sunday. Surrounded by fauxhawked and guyliner-using guys in those sweaty mosh pits, I think there was a certain amount of overcompensation happening in response to my budding man-loving ways. The unapologetic masculinity was my pre-university intoxication of choice. And in retrospect, I doubt I was the lone closet case at those nu-metal love-ins. It wasn't until my girlfriend - today a lesbian - introduced the catalogs of Ani Difranco and Tori Amos to my life that many things - my musical taste included - started making much more sense. While I wince at the thought of sitting through an entire Limp Bizkit CD today, I can't deny that this admittedly crass phase was still an important step in the development of both my ecclectic musical leanings and my sense of self.
Jake Guidry: The year was 1999 and I was 14 years old. I'd just entered the mall, me with my coolly gelled, frosted tips, an over-sized American Eagle polo, and a sweet wooden necklace. Needless to say, my swag was turned on this particular day. I casually strolled through the mall, its flashing lights calling my name, promising a better life via hot new cell phones and fresh Doc Martens. Though these things called to me, my focus was on the music. I had to get some kick ass new music. As I graced the quaint Sam Goody music shop, I approached the moderately-priced $21.99 CDs. I browsed through, dutifully. Collective Soul? A little past their prime. Three 6 Mafia? Perhaps, but my buddy Rich had just picked it up. No, today's CD purchase required some freshness, a certain je ne sais quoi. That CD--that beautiful fucking CD--was Staind's debut LP, Dysfunction.
The previous week I'd gone to one of the best concerts I'd ever been to. The "Family Values Tour", included the likes of Korn, Limp Bizkit, Filter and Crystal Method. A mega bill that featured the undisputed champs of the rap/metal hybrid. Who opened that night? Staind. As I entered the large arena, mother in tow, the deep bassline of Staind's first-ever single, "Mudshovel" echoed through the halls laced with St. Louis Blues memorabilia. The song rang through my bones and then, at that exact moment, I knew I had a new favorite band.
Betsy Mikel: I’m not embarrassed that my first concert was Christina Aguilera with Sugar Ray because I was too young to pick my own concerts at that point. I was just excited to go to a concert. It was the Illinois State Fair, what could you expect? But when I was finally of intelligent age, I loved Coldplay so much that I chose to see them twice on the same tour. This experience taught me that a lot of bands play the exact same boring set list every single night and only change up the part where they go “WE LOVE YOU FILL-IN-THE-BLANK CITY!!!” I had expected Coldplay to be so much more original and down-to-earth than that. I really believed in them. Maybe it had something do with my freshmen college boyfriend dumping me. They had this one song that really spoke to me. And so I thought they cared about my concert-going experience. I realized that everything I had believed about Coldplay was a lie. Anyways, I learned my lesson, got over it and stopped going to see bands that I heard on the MIX.
Marcus Gilmer: To this day, I still maintain that the Gin Blossoms' "Hey Jealousy" is one of the greatest pop songs of the '90s. And I still maintain an inexplicable love for Avril Lavigne. There's no depth to it, but I don't always want to listen to Arcade Fire or Jonsi. Sometimes, I just want 35 minutes of pop fluff, cotton candy that goes in one ear and out the other and, for those 35 minutes, leaves me entertained. On the other end of the spectrum, I have an extensive collection of Phish bootlegs I collected during my college years; they're all stored in a 200 CD binder (hell, each show requires at least 2 CDs, plus I have the complete New Years Eve 1999/2000 set). I saw them on tour half a dozen times between 1998 and 2000 but, once they returned from their first hiatus in December 2002, never got back into them. I had moved on, left the bootlegs, the karma, the mail orders behind. But even now, I'll still dig out those recordings, particularly ones of shows I attended, sometimes for nostalgia but sometimes to try to remind myself what I liked about the band in the first place. During a particularly long, winding 35 minute version of "YEM" I might wonder about that, but all it takes is a knock-out version of "Run Like An Antelope" or "Down With Disease" to remind me that, yeah, if I can scrape together the cash, maybe I'll see them next time they're in town.
Tankboy: If I love a band I feel no need to defend 'em, so there!