Skip to main content

Song Dating -- Writer's Poke #227

Greg talked about how much he was enjoying his new XM radio. It made his long commute to work enjoyable, and it allowed him to explore music that he might never have listened to otherwise.

One such channel was 80s Hair Metal. He cranked up the volume, and his car transformed into a time machine, sending him back to his high school glory days. Skid Row, Whitesnake, Winger -- they were all here. And while Greg wasn't a big fan of any of these groups back in the day, he admitted that he found comfort into listening to them now.

For most of the 1990s, it was taboo to admit any fondness for Hair Metal. If you told someone that you liked Poison, for example, they would most likely pat you on the head while wearing a look of sympathy on their faces. But now, admitting to and embracing your musical past is acceptable. Charming even. Hell, they even play all the old anthems on VH-1 classics.

In 2001, Chuck Klosterman published Fargo Rock City. In this book, Klosterman damns hair metal while attempting to praise it. Maybe this is unintentional, and perhaps not enough time had past for him to fully embrace his inner KISS. And I'll be the first to admit that I had my Peter (St. Peter, not Peter Criss) moments for a few years, too. In the end, however, if music has any value whatsoever, it should be able to transcend labels and stereotypes. And for those of us that like guitars and music that rocks, there's really nothing better than Hair Metal.

What five year period of music is your favorite? Where were you during that period of you life, and what are your thoughts on why that music most speaks to you?

"When people hear good music, it makes them homesick for something they never had, and never will have." -- Edgar Watson Howe

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Jesus and the Inconvenience of His Word to American Christians

I'm not a preacher, but if you follow the teachings of Jesus, it was he who said: Do to others as you would have them do to you. That's from Luke 6:31 , and reading all of Luke 6 isn't a bad way to spend five minutes of your time.  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke%206&version=NIV I guess a lot of Christians understand the Golden Rule and practice it in their daily lives. Others, however, especially political Christians (and specifically those promoting Christian Nationalism) seem to ignore the Golden Rule. They don't care about humanitarian issues. They claim they either don't exist, aren't the problem of the United States, or are the fault of the victims. They counter with distractions like, "Why do you care so much about THEM when you should be caring about the REAL people who matter?" Sorry, but I don't recall Jesus ever dividing people into those who matter more and those who matter less. Of course, Jesus also said not to j...

Microblogging? The Future of Writing with ADHD

Bill Bennett is a very common name. Right now, I'm reading a book by the Australian film maker Bill Bennett. He hiked the Camino in 2013 and then wrote a book (and made an Australian movie, not available in the U.S.) about it.  Seems he kept a blog about that hike, too. I went to look for his Camino blog, and found he started one years after the hike, but he didn't post regularly... His last post from 2022 announced his had Parkinson's and had kept the diagnosis secret for 4 years.  Now that almost three years have passed from that post, I wonder what's happened to him.  Blogs are weird. They just sit there. Anyone can stumble upon them, and read them. So I decided to keep looking for his Camino blog.  https://billbennett.blog/home/ *** And I found another Bill Bennett, this one from New Zealand, who keeps a microblog. It's current and updated. "What's a microblog?" My wife asked. Well, I said, it's a small blog. Just a sentence or two for a post. ...