It's been a while since I've meme'd

[trinityvixen]

I'm skiving off studying for a little bit to revisit a meme I shouldn't have let die, seeing as it's so much fun. Let's see, where was I?

Day 01 - A favorite song
Day 02 - A song that makes you happy
Day 03 - A song that makes you sad
Day 04 - A song that reminds you of someone
Day 05 - A song that reminds you of somewhere
Day 06 - A song that reminds you of a certain event
Day 07 - A song that you can dance to
Day 08 - A song that makes you fall asleep
Day 09 - A song from your favorite band
Ooo-er, thems fighting words, "favorite band" are. I have probably four-five bands that I completely adore. If I have to give the edge to any, it would be those I discovered in high school, when, for the first time, I became less a creature of radio and movie soundtracks and more a fan of whole bands. There were two that completely dominated my high school years. To choose between them, if the first round of cuts was hard, would be next to impossible. Garbage was the first band to really electrify me. My internets alias, TrinityVixen, is owed to the rock wake up call I got from this track off the band's debut album:

Those guitars? Blew my teenaged mind. I go back to "Supervixen" all the time and just...marvel at it. At the whole Garbage album. Despite their wicked use of techno stylings later on, they will always, always, always be writ large on my memory as the day I discovered guitars make everything better.

That sort of revelation is exactly why my other favorite shocked me into a whole new world of music. I was pop-and-light-rock, with a side of 80s New Wave and 90s Grunge going into high school. (My tastes being highly influenced by my Gen X siblings.) Garbage threw open wide a door into HOLY SHIT ACTUAL ROCK MUSIC. But Nine Inch Nails fucking punched me in the gut with music. I sorta missed out on the hype of The Downward Spiral, although I remember being both confused, titillated (he said "fuck!") and turned on by the video for "Closer." (At the time, I didn't even know that that was what my reaction of unh! was). Pretty Hate Machine only surfaced on my consciousness when the occasional pop station would dabble in "Head Like A Hole." I remember listening to that at high school on a walkman. (A portable player of cassette tapes! Behold my agedness!) I also remember not being all that impressed, and when I would later be a fan--a sneak out of the house in a slutty top to go to a concert fan--I could hardly believe it was the same band (same person, really) who did this to me:

It's not that this song all but socked me in the gut, though it did, a little at the time. (Remember, super goody-goody two-shoes teenager, I was.) It's that I heard this song, and I all but lurched instantly towards what I still consider the best NIN album ever, The Fragile. I discovered screaming is sexy. (And that Trent Reznor fella, he's not so bad neither.)

From there, I ran backwards to appreciate "Wish," "March of the Pigs," and "Sin," and I never once regretted it. All the bands I wouldn't know if I hadn't hit NIN back like the angry fist of God. Hey, it hit me first.

Comments

[fairest.livejournal.com]

You know, it is the strangest thing, but I used to have a roommate in college who played this exact stuff on infinite loop! The bands you remember fondly I remember (somewhat fondly, though I will never admit it, and especially not in public on a journal site) as instruments of torture. "Cherry Lips." "The Perfect Drug." Ah, memories!

Why, I'm surprised to see you didn't choose The Cure! Have you heard "More Than This?" I'M VERY FAMILIAR WITH IT, MYSELF.

[:P :P :P :P :P :P :P]

[trinityvixen.livejournal.com]

To be fair, I think we BOTH drove Ms. Beans crazy with "Cherry Lips" 'cause we were playing it all the time on a video game.

I would have put The Cure on there, but, though I enjoy them immensely and without question, there isn't the same epiphany about them as I have with Garbage and NIN. They're definitely one of the five favorites from which I had to reduce myself to a still-cheating-the-meme two favorites.

[fairest.livejournal.com]

Ha! That and "What's Going On?" both. AND she had to deal with the Sailor Moon theme song along with you. In retrospect, Ms. Beans was a saint. :)

I was just thinking about Amplitude the other day, actually -- I miss that game. I wish they'd port it to XBox, though I recognize this is monumentally unlikely. Alas.