so long, panic! at the disco!
does anyone else have a problem concentrating while listening to music? i feel like most people are able to function while listening to music, but i really cannot. in high school i used to spend forever on my calculus homework because every night i would just come home, put on one of two cds (is this it by the strokes or pinkerton by weezer) and spend hours working, because i would get distracted by the music and i figured all i wanted to be doing anyway was listening to the music. i guess that hasn't changed so much to this day.
i think i am feeling a little lost with my musical direction lately. as some of you may remember, i had an entirely different taste in music in high school and early college than i did at graduation, which is entirely different from now. for those of you who don't, or want it simplified, i will present to you a timeline, complete with years and artists and/or genres listened to during the time periods.
1991-1995 (1st-4th grade): country music; whatever was on the radio
1995-1996 (5th-6th grade): top 40, rap; whatever was on kiss 108 or jamn 94.5; tlc, mariah carey, coolio
1997 (6th-7th grade): boy bands; HANSON, backstreet boys, boyzone*
1998-1999 (8th-9th grade): two phases: classic rock/oldies; the doors, led zeppelin, the ramones, brian jones-era rolling stones, the beatles, the who, the kinks, the monkees. britpop/sounds-like-britpop; blur, pulp, oasis, the dandy warhols, sloan, duran duran (also radish and weezer which don't fit into either category)
2000-2001 (10th-11th grade): skate punk; nofx, anything on the punk-o-rama and fat music compilations. anti-flag. eve 6 & the marvelous 3.
2001-2003 (11th-12th grade): the "the" bands (neo-garage rock); the strokes, the white stripes, the hives, the vines
2003-2004 (freshman year of college): still the "the" bands and britpop bands, plus any hipster band i could my hands on; the stills, leaves; also, pop-punk/emo bands; brand new, taking back sunday, the starting line, straylight run, the juliana theory, dashboard confessional
2004-2005 (sophomore year of college)**: country; gretchen wilson, tim mcgraw; brad paisley; also, whatever i felt like listening to at the time; usually bob dylan and dashboard confessional. to be honest, i was stoned the whole time. i think i also listened to a lot of sublime around this time too.
2005- august 2007 (junor-senior year of college): country, almost exclusively; brad paisley; loretta lynn; toby keith; josh turner; also, for no apparent reason, arctic monkeys
august 2007-december 2007 (post-graduation, entry-level job): some combination of everything up there, plus bands that appeared while i was listening to country; kaiser chiefs, hard-fi, fall out boy, panic! at the disco
so that more or less brings us up to speed. i obviously have varied quite a bit in there.
i think i am feeling weird about the music i listen to now because i no longer listen to country at all, and i feel guilty. ryan was definitely the one who turned me on to country, but for some reason it was ALL I LISTENED TO for years. when i told people i listened to it and then they looked at my cd collection from high school, they most definitely asked, "what the hell happened to you?" i have no idea why i made such a huge jump to country, other than it was the kind of music we shared, and i couldn't bring myself to listen to his fucking chamillionaire, 7th floor crew, and kc & the sunshine band mp3s.
then we broke up, and i continued to listen to it. i bought brad paisley's new cd the day it came out, and i spent $60 on t-shirts on top of ticket prices when i went to his concert this summer. i feel like i need to apologize to country music because it might think that the reason i dropped it was because ryan and i broke up. this actually has nothing to do with it; i legitimately loved this music independently from my relationship. i hope country music as a genre can read my livejournal and accept my apology.
the best reason i can think of lays with arctic monkeys. i bought their first album shortly after it came out, listened to it some, and then didn't. then, when i was in ireland and heard they had a new song out, i became OBSESSED. i bought their second album the day it came out, and i tried to find other bands that sounded like them, because i was listening to them nonstop for months and didn't want to burn myself out (don't worry, i didn't.) this leads to the discovery of the aforementioned bands i have started listening to. i don't know where fall out boy and panic! at the disco fit in there, though. those were new developments and i pretty much just stole my brother's emo cd collection, burned myself copies, and decided to listen to them a lot.
however, none of this is the point of this post. the point of this post is pretty much how i am ripping through music so quickly these days, and i have these obsessions that i cannot stop. panic! at the disco? i am the first one to admit that is SERIOUSLY uncool, but i am also the first one to admit that i love love love them. i love them so much that i have purchased a cobra starship cd. i don't know why i decided that was a good scene to be into, but it is most definitely not cool for anyone older than 15.
so, uh, last week i decided i liked bright eyes a lot and wanted to listen to more of them/him. bright eyes is one of those bands that has been around forever, and i feel like i have always known about them and don't remember how, and that i have listened to a little bit but i don't remember why or when. i do remember i read this blog in high school that some girl wrote, and she really had to have been from nebraska because she was always writing about saddle creek bands. i also remember those "which _____ are you?" quizzes. they're probably still around, but these predated the quizilla quizzes, back when bloggers coded them themselves. (i know this first hand because i helped create a few with my friends.) ANYWAY, i distinctly remember taking one called "which emo band are you?" and getting bright eyes, because it had this fantastic description of something like "you should really lay off the alcohol. no one likes a convicted felon." (a recent google search proved fruitless in finding any traces of this quiz.)
thinking back on this, this seems so weird. first of all, bright eyes are pretty much considered an alt-country band by this point, where in high school they were like THE EMO. my "totally non-emo" friends and i (who listened to pinkerton on a loop for like 3 years straight) would toss the name "bright eyes" around for anything whiny. example: "oh my god, you listen to the promise ring? you are so emo! i bet you like bright eyes too, loser!"
really, i had nothing against bright eyes. again, i don't remember starting to listen to them at all. i know freshman year i listened to "the calendar hung itself" a LOT, and "something vague" and "no lies, just love" a moderate amount. i remember a friend of a friend playing us a recording of him doing "something vague" while drinking in west campus one night. (you get 10 points if you remember this event; you lose 100000 points if you remember who i made out with and where it was.) i remember seeing the music video for "first day of my life" sophomore year and telling ryan about it, so it became "kinda one of our songs" (our definitive song being "hands down" by dashboard confessional. shut up.)
so really, i have not thought about them at ALL since then. i knew they were touring around boston last month, but i declined to go as i only knew a few songs by them at that time. obviously, i am now hating myself. they actually toured twice in 2007, and did quite a few local shows. i missed a few of them because i was in ireland at the time, but had i been in the country and listening to them, i theoretically could have seen bright eyes live FIVE TIMES this year! i am quite obviously hating myself right now.
if you had not noticed by now, i have quite the little music purchasing obsession. i think i just like the idea of actually OWNING the music, and having something tangible, unlike downloading something. so i have purchased four (FOUR!!) bright eyes albums in the past WEEK. i bought the newest album, cassadaga, on vinyl, because: 1. i found it on vinyl and i have a turntable in my bedroom; 2. it came with a free mp3 album download so i could still put it on my ipod. don't worry, it was only almost twice the price of the cd.***
i know people are generally split on bright eyes/conor oberst; they generally hate hate HATE him, or love love LOVE him. i actually don't even know if i know anybody who listens to bright eyes (although suzie did mention them the other day, which was totally weird because it was right after i had bought my first bright eyes cd and i hadn't even mentioned it) but, okay, bloggers tend to be split (i waste a lot of time at work.) i guess i tend to be more on the side of the latter. and yeah, i do think he's hot, but again, i don't even remember the first time i found out what he looked like, and i don't remember if i thought he was attractive either. but i do now, although after viewing the "four winds" music video, he leaves a little to be desired in the gum-to-tooth ratio.
also, i kind of want to know what happened to him recently. he's only 27.
2006:
2007:
(can't steal the picture: go here
obviously i looked for the worst picture i could find; he's not actually bad looking. it's just, WOW, is that the same person?
and i am going to include my fav photo of him ever, just because. his shirt is 100% godawful fug, but HE'S POSING IN A LIBRARY!!<3<3
if you read all of this, i commend you. i apologize for making my posts so long, oh ALL OF THE TIME, but really, when i think of things i want to write about, i don't actually get around to it for days, and by that point i've been thinking about what i am going to write for quite a while, and it all just piles up until i blurt it all out in such a long-winded way that nobody will ever read it. a note to everyone i am friends with: i actually prefer reading long lj-posts, because i need to know history and context to really get the feel for what you are trying to express. i don't like things like, "my car died today" because i need to know how long you have had the car, what kind of car it is, why you picked that kind of car, what you like about it, what color it is, any distinguishing marks, etc. in general, i like hearing stories, and i hope other people like my stories, however irrelevant and unnecessarily long they may be.
*thankfully this stage ended before n sync appeared, so i was never a fan of them
**this is obviously where i stopped caring how cool the music i listened to made me look. unfortunately, this was the period where i had my own radio show
***during this week i also purchased the aforementioned cobra starship cd and two arctic monkeys 7" which were, oh RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE after the exchange rate and shipping from the uk. i am a fucking retard.
i think i am feeling a little lost with my musical direction lately. as some of you may remember, i had an entirely different taste in music in high school and early college than i did at graduation, which is entirely different from now. for those of you who don't, or want it simplified, i will present to you a timeline, complete with years and artists and/or genres listened to during the time periods.
1991-1995 (1st-4th grade): country music; whatever was on the radio
1995-1996 (5th-6th grade): top 40, rap; whatever was on kiss 108 or jamn 94.5; tlc, mariah carey, coolio
1997 (6th-7th grade): boy bands; HANSON, backstreet boys, boyzone*
1998-1999 (8th-9th grade): two phases: classic rock/oldies; the doors, led zeppelin, the ramones, brian jones-era rolling stones, the beatles, the who, the kinks, the monkees. britpop/sounds-like-britpop; blur, pulp, oasis, the dandy warhols, sloan, duran duran (also radish and weezer which don't fit into either category)
2000-2001 (10th-11th grade): skate punk; nofx, anything on the punk-o-rama and fat music compilations. anti-flag. eve 6 & the marvelous 3.
2001-2003 (11th-12th grade): the "the" bands (neo-garage rock); the strokes, the white stripes, the hives, the vines
2003-2004 (freshman year of college): still the "the" bands and britpop bands, plus any hipster band i could my hands on; the stills, leaves; also, pop-punk/emo bands; brand new, taking back sunday, the starting line, straylight run, the juliana theory, dashboard confessional
2004-2005 (sophomore year of college)**: country; gretchen wilson, tim mcgraw; brad paisley; also, whatever i felt like listening to at the time; usually bob dylan and dashboard confessional. to be honest, i was stoned the whole time. i think i also listened to a lot of sublime around this time too.
2005- august 2007 (junor-senior year of college): country, almost exclusively; brad paisley; loretta lynn; toby keith; josh turner; also, for no apparent reason, arctic monkeys
august 2007-december 2007 (post-graduation, entry-level job): some combination of everything up there, plus bands that appeared while i was listening to country; kaiser chiefs, hard-fi, fall out boy, panic! at the disco
so that more or less brings us up to speed. i obviously have varied quite a bit in there.
i think i am feeling weird about the music i listen to now because i no longer listen to country at all, and i feel guilty. ryan was definitely the one who turned me on to country, but for some reason it was ALL I LISTENED TO for years. when i told people i listened to it and then they looked at my cd collection from high school, they most definitely asked, "what the hell happened to you?" i have no idea why i made such a huge jump to country, other than it was the kind of music we shared, and i couldn't bring myself to listen to his fucking chamillionaire, 7th floor crew, and kc & the sunshine band mp3s.
then we broke up, and i continued to listen to it. i bought brad paisley's new cd the day it came out, and i spent $60 on t-shirts on top of ticket prices when i went to his concert this summer. i feel like i need to apologize to country music because it might think that the reason i dropped it was because ryan and i broke up. this actually has nothing to do with it; i legitimately loved this music independently from my relationship. i hope country music as a genre can read my livejournal and accept my apology.
the best reason i can think of lays with arctic monkeys. i bought their first album shortly after it came out, listened to it some, and then didn't. then, when i was in ireland and heard they had a new song out, i became OBSESSED. i bought their second album the day it came out, and i tried to find other bands that sounded like them, because i was listening to them nonstop for months and didn't want to burn myself out (don't worry, i didn't.) this leads to the discovery of the aforementioned bands i have started listening to. i don't know where fall out boy and panic! at the disco fit in there, though. those were new developments and i pretty much just stole my brother's emo cd collection, burned myself copies, and decided to listen to them a lot.
however, none of this is the point of this post. the point of this post is pretty much how i am ripping through music so quickly these days, and i have these obsessions that i cannot stop. panic! at the disco? i am the first one to admit that is SERIOUSLY uncool, but i am also the first one to admit that i love love love them. i love them so much that i have purchased a cobra starship cd. i don't know why i decided that was a good scene to be into, but it is most definitely not cool for anyone older than 15.
so, uh, last week i decided i liked bright eyes a lot and wanted to listen to more of them/him. bright eyes is one of those bands that has been around forever, and i feel like i have always known about them and don't remember how, and that i have listened to a little bit but i don't remember why or when. i do remember i read this blog in high school that some girl wrote, and she really had to have been from nebraska because she was always writing about saddle creek bands. i also remember those "which _____ are you?" quizzes. they're probably still around, but these predated the quizilla quizzes, back when bloggers coded them themselves. (i know this first hand because i helped create a few with my friends.) ANYWAY, i distinctly remember taking one called "which emo band are you?" and getting bright eyes, because it had this fantastic description of something like "you should really lay off the alcohol. no one likes a convicted felon." (a recent google search proved fruitless in finding any traces of this quiz.)
thinking back on this, this seems so weird. first of all, bright eyes are pretty much considered an alt-country band by this point, where in high school they were like THE EMO. my "totally non-emo" friends and i (who listened to pinkerton on a loop for like 3 years straight) would toss the name "bright eyes" around for anything whiny. example: "oh my god, you listen to the promise ring? you are so emo! i bet you like bright eyes too, loser!"
really, i had nothing against bright eyes. again, i don't remember starting to listen to them at all. i know freshman year i listened to "the calendar hung itself" a LOT, and "something vague" and "no lies, just love" a moderate amount. i remember a friend of a friend playing us a recording of him doing "something vague" while drinking in west campus one night. (you get 10 points if you remember this event; you lose 100000 points if you remember who i made out with and where it was.) i remember seeing the music video for "first day of my life" sophomore year and telling ryan about it, so it became "kinda one of our songs" (our definitive song being "hands down" by dashboard confessional. shut up.)
so really, i have not thought about them at ALL since then. i knew they were touring around boston last month, but i declined to go as i only knew a few songs by them at that time. obviously, i am now hating myself. they actually toured twice in 2007, and did quite a few local shows. i missed a few of them because i was in ireland at the time, but had i been in the country and listening to them, i theoretically could have seen bright eyes live FIVE TIMES this year! i am quite obviously hating myself right now.
if you had not noticed by now, i have quite the little music purchasing obsession. i think i just like the idea of actually OWNING the music, and having something tangible, unlike downloading something. so i have purchased four (FOUR!!) bright eyes albums in the past WEEK. i bought the newest album, cassadaga, on vinyl, because: 1. i found it on vinyl and i have a turntable in my bedroom; 2. it came with a free mp3 album download so i could still put it on my ipod. don't worry, it was only almost twice the price of the cd.***
i know people are generally split on bright eyes/conor oberst; they generally hate hate HATE him, or love love LOVE him. i actually don't even know if i know anybody who listens to bright eyes (although suzie did mention them the other day, which was totally weird because it was right after i had bought my first bright eyes cd and i hadn't even mentioned it) but, okay, bloggers tend to be split (i waste a lot of time at work.) i guess i tend to be more on the side of the latter. and yeah, i do think he's hot, but again, i don't even remember the first time i found out what he looked like, and i don't remember if i thought he was attractive either. but i do now, although after viewing the "four winds" music video, he leaves a little to be desired in the gum-to-tooth ratio.
also, i kind of want to know what happened to him recently. he's only 27.
2006:
2007:
(can't steal the picture: go here
obviously i looked for the worst picture i could find; he's not actually bad looking. it's just, WOW, is that the same person?
and i am going to include my fav photo of him ever, just because. his shirt is 100% godawful fug, but HE'S POSING IN A LIBRARY!!<3<3
if you read all of this, i commend you. i apologize for making my posts so long, oh ALL OF THE TIME, but really, when i think of things i want to write about, i don't actually get around to it for days, and by that point i've been thinking about what i am going to write for quite a while, and it all just piles up until i blurt it all out in such a long-winded way that nobody will ever read it. a note to everyone i am friends with: i actually prefer reading long lj-posts, because i need to know history and context to really get the feel for what you are trying to express. i don't like things like, "my car died today" because i need to know how long you have had the car, what kind of car it is, why you picked that kind of car, what you like about it, what color it is, any distinguishing marks, etc. in general, i like hearing stories, and i hope other people like my stories, however irrelevant and unnecessarily long they may be.
*thankfully this stage ended before n sync appeared, so i was never a fan of them
**this is obviously where i stopped caring how cool the music i listened to made me look. unfortunately, this was the period where i had my own radio show
***during this week i also purchased the aforementioned cobra starship cd and two arctic monkeys 7" which were, oh RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE after the exchange rate and shipping from the uk. i am a fucking retard.