After numerous siftings through this nevertheless exhaustive collection, the only two albums I've taken to the relative safety of my room are Eric Clapton's Unplugged and Soundgarden's Superunknown. The first he got because it has a song that mentions my sister's name a number of times (I'll let you guess what that is), the latter he described as "a mistake I only got because it was number 1 somehow. I've never listened to it entirely". For a long time, he described my music with the expression that my great-uncle uses to talk about old-style rock'n'roll: de la musique de peaux-rouge. Which happens to be mildly offensive, so I'm not translating that.
So no vivid vinyl memories for me. No passing on of buried treasure, no shared tastes. Sure, I had a vague backstreet boys moment around 9, as well as other momentary radio crushes, but they always felt tasteless - going with the easy option, what was readily available.
So what changed that? Well, I didn't write this lenghty useless introduction for nothing. If you're still reading this, it means you have some nerve, and must be really interested. I'll skip the Linkin' Park and Good Charlotte episodes and the Blink 182 covers (although I have to say Travis Barker is still a sick drummer), and finally get to my point:
DIGIMON
That's right. I would probably be a very different person if it wasn't for that fairly catastrophic child's pokemon ripoff cartoon. More specifically, the movie that spawned from its success, and very precisely, the sequence with Smashmouth's song All Star. To this day, I still haven't thought too much as too what the song is exactly about, nor do the lyrics make any sense in my head (I was still learning English back then). It's been about 10 years since I first listened to this song, and I finally got around to actually reading the lyrics.
Verdict: song's pretty bad. But it made me get Smashmouth's 2001 self titled album:
Beneath the horrible cover was the first CD I had really asked for. As mentioned before, and like for Flavio, I was learning English at that time, which made me able to consider the lyrics more as sounds then anything with a message (let's be honest, the words to most of these songs are fairly horrendous).
However this record shaped my tastes: I liked the coolness of the first track, the relative "violence" of the second track (qualified by my dad as sounding like a drum carnage), the violin synths of the 3rd track pretty much made me want to vomit...
So why would I ever talk about an album that is important to me only it was a random starting point?
First of all, this was Flavio's idea, and I just went with it. Read his own blog too, it's awesome.
Second, it's obvious that this record has little musical interest. Sister Psychic still sounds like an ok song to me, and memories of Shrek and Digimon are woken up by listening to All Star. The Monkees' I'm a Believer is also covered on this record, and that reminds me of The Spy Who Shagged Me, which is probably the movie that turned me on dumb absurd comedies. The harmonica solo in that one song is kinda cool, that gnarly synth in Force Field makes me understand why I like Tobacco today, Shoes'n'hats is a bro version of AC/DC (which remains one of my favorite bands). You could even say that Smashmouth's only feat is that they take a number of influences/characteristic sounds (ranging from hip hop to metal and going by 60's pop and lounge) and making it sound like a cohesive blend pop record.
In short, it was a pretty awesome introduction to modern music for a 9 year old kid. Your young cousing/familly member is coming over for Christmas and you don't know what to get him? This blog just provided the longest most inconvenient and specific gift advice of all times. Enjoy.
Quand on lance une gousse d'ail contre le mur, elle rebondit. C'est le retour du jet d'ail.
This one's for you, Arthur.
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