The MMMBop Paradox

 1996 and 1997 were interesting years for me musically. I can still hear those years both on the radio and through the Sony CD player I would come to regret installing in my 1972 Chevelle. I was honestly riding around with some fantastic albums that mostly came out in '94 and '95. We will get there in a minute as I try to paint a bit of a musical tableau of the time. The radio sounded very different than what I was choosing to play for myself. These would turn out to be the years where I would find the courage to love music that other people would make fun of me for. 

I am no musical historian by any means. I have lived through a ton of music I loved. As a kid I was happy hearing Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, MC Hammer, and all sorts of other pop type music. In the car with my Mom we were listening to the adult contemporary station and I liked the music rather a lot. When picking out music for myself my tastes varied a bit. I leaned into Poison, Warrant, Def Leppard, and Guns 'N Roses pretty heavily. 

Now and then I have never been a huge fan of country music. There are exceptions like Johnny Cash (which to me was always rock), Garth Brooks (country that does in fact rock), and a few others. I will confess to loving the Dixie Chicks, LeeAnn Rhimes, and Shania Twain. Ok... some country is pretty good. I didn't feel that way in 96/97. 

While I was not quite ready to dig through the ditches and burn through the witches, my CD collection was more grunge and metal than anything else. I wore a lot of black. I tucked my jeans into my combat boots. I thought I was edgy... at least when I wasn't playing Dungeons and Dragons. 

Let's be real. I was a hopeless nerd. I had a high opinion of my music and my hobbies. Things were about to change for a number of reasons I couldn't predict. Not the least of these was high school ending. Life was changing in ways that would throw me for years, but I had some albums that I still love to this day. Let's start out HARD. 

I have written about this before, but Astro-Creep:2000 was the album that kept getting away from me. I know I purchased it digitally, but even when I just went and checked my iTunes I only have three songs from the album on there. Naturally, I had to bloody download the whole album and recreate the playlist. 

This album moved me far too quickly down the road. I like driving with the music, and it is amazing that I avoided speeding tickets. It also could get me hyped up or let me work out my anger. I was almost always pissed off about something and oddly enough this album would calm me down and get me back in a good mood. I still enjoy hearing it....if I can hold on to the damned thing. 

In a show of 100% lack of originality I absolutely loved the movie The Crow. Were there angsty teenage boys in the 90s that weren't into this and Tombstone? It would be a few years before I started to question why I enjoyed rage fueled revenge stories so much. No one comes out of this movie or the sequel in a good place. These stories are tragic and problematic...and perfect for the 90s. 

The soundtrack though... it hits. I have had this in my collection consistently since I purchased it. With The Cure, Stone Temple Pilots, Violent Femmes, Helmet, Nine Inch Nails, and Pantera on the album it had to be fantastic. It is funny that this was a place where I started falling in love with Rage Against the Machine. The song that snuck up on me and has remained a favorite for 28 years now is Jane Siberry's It Can't Rain All The Time. It was this calm oasis in the middle of all this metal, but somehow it was absolutely perfect. Time Baby III by Medicine was on point too. 

Speaking of perfection... I don't believe the Pumpkins get any better than Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. I will be 100% honest that I showed up for Thirty-Three and 1979, but I stayed for the entire two disc album and became a huge fan. I hate to say it, but if you were alive in this era of time and didn't get this album it is time to find it and listen. This album made it pretty alright to have more feelings than lust, anger, and brooding silence. It spoke to me and encouraged me to have something of substance to say and I still love it. 

Gwen Stefani is beautiful. I love her voice. Even back in the mid 90s when this album seemed to break the world, I knew she was stylish and amazing. Oh, and it turns out the rest of the band is pretty important too because later Gwen Stefani solo work is pretty different. 

I talk a lot about Gwen here because she gave me a whole new fetish for "angry girl" music. I fully acknowledge that she wasn't the first to do it. She just showed up at the perfect time in my coming of age to be my first focal point for a love that extends to this day. 

The album is a masterpiece. I felt zero shame blasting it out of the Chevelle at full volume. In fact, I still feel zero shame turning this one up in my freaking Hyundai (which I love but it suffers in comparison to the memory of a small block Chevy V8) Veloster. I never got enough No Doubt. 

I will say that while No Doubt falls pretty firmly in the alternative category for me that they were a bit more mainstream than quite a few other things I was listening to at the time. If I had been paying attention, I would have noticed that I was shopping more and more what the "normal" kids were buying at the time. I noticed it later when I bought my first Creed album. Ugh. 

I took a trip with my ROTC class to Washington D.C. and I listened to Dookie all the way there and back. I didn't do this to make friends, but that was a nice side effect. I will freely admit that my Walkman headphones only left my head when we were doing our finest Beavis and Butthead impressions.

Green Day was something new and fresh for me.  It had edge, but it wasn't hard. It could be completely stupid on one track and deep and relevant on another. I remember thinking pretty hard on the lyrics," I went to a whore. He said my life is a bore." This wasn't my first confront with the idea that there really were men who slept with men and that gay wasn't just something else to call my friends along with nerd, dork, dilweed, and the evergreen douche.  Conversations about these lyrics were had quietly amongst my friends... maybe it was good that we were even talking about it. 

This album has taken me on much longer trips. I mean the fact that She hits just as hard at age 42 as it did when I was 14 is pretty freaking cool. 

Speaking of things that hit different... The Offspring. I mean how have I survived without another Offspring album all these years. Smash turned out to be the warm act for Americana, and I must admit when i got back for Offspring I swing for Americana. That is about a different time in my life though. 

Smash was an interesting mix of dorky cool and hard. Sure Come Out and Play and Self Esteem could be the anthem of that era of my life, but the rest of the album is absolutely fantastic. I feel like this album doesn't get near enough love to this day. 

Now I could spend several more hours listing out all my favorite albums from this general era. I didn't get to Soul Asylum or Collective Soul. I didn't spend enough time on R.E.M. I also completely ignored all the hip hop albums that I loved... in the privacy of my own home. It hurts to admit that, but I was big into hip hop, but I didn't exactly bring the Above the Rim soundtrack out in the era when other kids had thumping bass that destroyed my pair of six by nines. I had stacks of CDs that I mostly listened to by myself until years later. I must admit some part of me still gets tempted to build a ridiculous speaker system just because I never did. 

Then came a change and it was subtle. Think about all the music I have just talked through and then click here to check out the Top 100 Billboard singles for 1997. It is a pretty big jump from the music I had been pumping into my ears for the last several years to the Spice Girls and Hanson. 

Why do I pick those two specifically out of that list? Well, at a glance they were the first two entries that I had their CDs traveling around with me. I freaking loved Hanson. MMMBop still is a great song in my book. I can play it ironically or I can just straight up jam to it.  Keith Sweat freaking dominated my 1997. For most of a quarter century I couldn't even listen to Twisted or Nobody without absolutely pining for my high school girlfriend. No really. I left places to not hear it in years that began with 2. 

I can hear my old friend Becca saying that I sold out. Then again, for the special place she holds in my heart, I will never feel like the awesome musical purist I perceive her to be. I blame a lot of that on 1997. 

I really liked the vibe of the mainstream. I don't look back and cringe at memories of myself singing along with Your Woman by Whitetown. Normally, when I think back to that I go find it in my library and hit play. Pony by Ginuwine may bring up some embarrassing moments.

I credit this time in my own musical history with breaking my habit of taking my music so seriously. Different songs certainly helped me to think and feel things about myself and life, but I became a lot less of a poseur when I accepted the fact that I liked Hanson and White Zombie. I don't even much feel the need to apologize for that. That realization let me put Bone Thugs-n-Harmony in my CD player without my trunk rattling and just enjoy the music. 

This was a liberating feeling. I was musically out of the closet. I was allowed to like what I liked and and if that happened to include a Barbra Streisand song then that was alright too. 

Some years later I would find myself watching Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle. When the titular characters discover that their 'extreme' bullies are complete musical poseurs I couldn't have laughed harder. I was past the place that my hard and edgy music in some way validated me and that was a mature and liberating feeling. Later Terry Crewes would bring great joy in the flip side of that moment in White Chicks. 

I have an omnivore's appetite for music. I am still discovering new and old music that speaks to me. In the early 2000s I didn't get the appeal of ELO when Amy tried to show me their greatness. Then again, I really didn't appreciate Dad's old Simon and Garfunkel and Cat Stevens albums until a few years ago. I do wonder if I will ever get a deeper appreciation for Pink Floyd without getting into marijuana though.