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just some music musings
I was rocking out to Death Cab for Cutie the other day and realized that the only one of their albums I ever listen to is Plans. And I realized I have a pattern:
There are several bands whose albums were played a lot when I was in high school or college, that I associate with one specific time, and even though they loom large in my mind, I have never sought out the rest of that artist's music. It's like because the music was so ambient at that time, it was part of that moment, and not of me, so I don't need to listen to the rest of their stuff.
This is different than music I find on my own or through close friends--if I love a given album, I will seek out all of that artist's music and most of the time I love it all (or can learn to love it all if I listen to it enough lol!). So for instance, I have all of Loreena McKennitt's albums, all of Hozier's, all of Vienna Teng's, all of Carly Rae Jepsen's, all of the Civil Wars', almost all of Patty Griffin's, an obscene amount of Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell and Led Zeppelin, etc.
Since I've been out of school, I don't really hear many artists in the same way, absorbing them from the atmosphere around me. I don't listen to the radio, so I have no idea what's going on with music in the past 10+ years unless it's, like, as big as Beyonce or Taylor Swift, where you literally can't miss it.
Anyway, here are some musical groups whose I only listen to one album from:
High school:
Bleed American - Jimmy Eat World (2001)
Let Go - Avril Lavigne (2002)
Home - TheDixie Chicks (2002 - high school)
The All-American Rejects - The All-American Rejects (2002 - high school)
Undergrad:
Plans - Death Cab for Cutie (2005)
Say I Am You - The Weepies (2006)
Begin to Hope - Regina Spektor (2006)
Sigh No More - Mumford and Sons (2009)
The Family Jewels - Marina + the Diamonds and My Best Friend Is You - Kate Nash (2010 - the year after I graduated from undergrad but while I was still hanging out with my undergrad friends because we hadn't all left town yet)
And some compilation albums that also seem very of-their-time since I absorbed them because of their ubiquity:
Moulin Rouge soundtrack (2001)
Shrek soundtrack (2001)
A Walk to Remember soundtrack (2002)
Garden State soundtrack (2004)
And then, of course, there are the singles that were huge at a given time. Like, I can't think of high school without thinking of Outkast's "Hey Ya!" or of middle school without thinking of "My Heart Will Go On" or of elementary school without thinking of the Spice Girls or the Macarena.
But for music that I really love, it's timeless. Have I been listening to The Book of Secrets since, like, 2000? I sure have! And yet it doesn't seem to belong to that time at all--it's just one of my albums. Lorde's Melodrama doesn't evoke a time, it's just Melodrama!
I'm not sure how universal any of this is, so I would like to know how y'all experience the intersection of music and time and how you decide which artists to seek out more of and which to leave alone.
There are several bands whose albums were played a lot when I was in high school or college, that I associate with one specific time, and even though they loom large in my mind, I have never sought out the rest of that artist's music. It's like because the music was so ambient at that time, it was part of that moment, and not of me, so I don't need to listen to the rest of their stuff.
This is different than music I find on my own or through close friends--if I love a given album, I will seek out all of that artist's music and most of the time I love it all (or can learn to love it all if I listen to it enough lol!). So for instance, I have all of Loreena McKennitt's albums, all of Hozier's, all of Vienna Teng's, all of Carly Rae Jepsen's, all of the Civil Wars', almost all of Patty Griffin's, an obscene amount of Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell and Led Zeppelin, etc.
Since I've been out of school, I don't really hear many artists in the same way, absorbing them from the atmosphere around me. I don't listen to the radio, so I have no idea what's going on with music in the past 10+ years unless it's, like, as big as Beyonce or Taylor Swift, where you literally can't miss it.
Anyway, here are some musical groups whose I only listen to one album from:
High school:
Bleed American - Jimmy Eat World (2001)
Let Go - Avril Lavigne (2002)
Home - The
The All-American Rejects - The All-American Rejects (2002 - high school)
Undergrad:
Plans - Death Cab for Cutie (2005)
Say I Am You - The Weepies (2006)
Begin to Hope - Regina Spektor (2006)
Sigh No More - Mumford and Sons (2009)
The Family Jewels - Marina + the Diamonds and My Best Friend Is You - Kate Nash (2010 - the year after I graduated from undergrad but while I was still hanging out with my undergrad friends because we hadn't all left town yet)
And some compilation albums that also seem very of-their-time since I absorbed them because of their ubiquity:
Moulin Rouge soundtrack (2001)
Shrek soundtrack (2001)
A Walk to Remember soundtrack (2002)
Garden State soundtrack (2004)
And then, of course, there are the singles that were huge at a given time. Like, I can't think of high school without thinking of Outkast's "Hey Ya!" or of middle school without thinking of "My Heart Will Go On" or of elementary school without thinking of the Spice Girls or the Macarena.
But for music that I really love, it's timeless. Have I been listening to The Book of Secrets since, like, 2000? I sure have! And yet it doesn't seem to belong to that time at all--it's just one of my albums. Lorde's Melodrama doesn't evoke a time, it's just Melodrama!
I'm not sure how universal any of this is, so I would like to know how y'all experience the intersection of music and time and how you decide which artists to seek out more of and which to leave alone.
no subject
The only artist I've really kept track of in the past 10 years is TaySway and that's largely because it feels like it's ALWAYS her time and I want to understand all the memes, discourse, etc.!
She is such a huge part of pop culture it's wild!