Musical Foundations: A New Way of Considering Music |
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| Written by Mike Cullen |
| Tuesday, 23 February 2010 00:00 |
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I have spent a good chunk of my life justifying choices I have made. Everything from what I chose to take in university (history) to the type of career path I have taken (government), to the type of toothpaste I prefer (Crest Whitening with Scope, if you must know), but nothing irks me more than having to justify an artist or band I like or a type of music I enjoy. We read in magazines such as Spin and Rolling Stone how Artist A or Album B is The Most Influential of [Insert Decade] or "[Insert Buzz-Phrase] of All Time." Has it not occurred to some of these magazine writers -- perhaps myself included -- that maybe the readership does not care what they think are essential, influential, or otherwise important to music? Mayber the reviewers and editorialists have got it all wrong; maybe it's not what the most important artist or album of a particular time period is, but rather what is important to the individual. And instead of influential music, maybe we should be looking at foundational music: what is it that we consider essential to our own personal collections. Would that not, by default, make it influential? I got to thinking about what I would consider to be the foundation of my music collection. Not an easy thing to define. If you had asked me when I was sixteen years old, I probably would have pointed to Blink 182, No Doubt, and The Cranberries. As someone who is now entering his late twenties, the foundation has changed in that intervening decade -- and not only that, but I am also quite cognizant that it shifts ever so slightly every couple of years. So what do I now consider the foundation of my music collection? That list is far too long to publish here, but I did think up four key albums that, throughout my music-listening life, have stuck by me. Some have been with me since I was a teenager, others are recent additions, but all are artists and albums that I know will be with me for a long time to come: Kylie Minogue, Impossible PrincessOriginally released in 1998, I did not get my hands on this until some time in 2003. Her second album Why is it important to me? This album represented a lot for me back when I first heard it. I was twenty, still trying to discover who I was as an individual, and the album -- with its multiple themes and perspectives -- illustrated to me that Kylie Minogue, as a pop star and as a person, was going through many of those same issues. This album also contains some of my favourite songs by her, including "Too Far," "Cowboy Style," "Limbo" and "Dreams (Impossible Princess);" truly one of her finest moments as an artist, and an album I continually come back to. New Order, Retro: Pop
I know I'm cheating a little with this one, a compilation disc from a box set, but I could not narrow my choice of influences to one single New Order album. In a way, New Order, as a successor to Joy Division, is a foundation block of the New Wave movement, and at the time they were one of the more avant-garde in terms of sound as well. They melded post-punk and underground dance in a way that made it completely accessible to the masses. Retro: Pop features some of their best known works from "Blue Monday" and "Regret" to "Crystal" and "Temptation." When I want to introduce friends to the band, this is the disc I give them a copy of. Why is it important to me? Post-punk and music from the U.K. -- specifically Joy Division and New Order -- have been the cornerstones of my music listening throughout most of my twenties. There really is not much else to say about this, other than that I was twenty years too late for the post-punk/new wave movements in music. Oasis, (What's the Story) Morning Glory?
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with deConstruction Records, Minogue really went outside the safe confines of pop music with this album, teaming up with the likes of James Dean Bradfield of the Manic Street Preachers, Dave Ball, Ingo Vauk, and of course her then-regular collaborators Brothers in Rhythm. Impossible Princess revealed a deeper Kylie Minogue to an audience that had only heard the likes of "I Should Be So Lucky," "Locomotion," or "Better the Devil You Know." She took risks with this album, writing most of the lyrics and even some of the melodies herself. She took a darker approach to her music, as made evident on songs like "Too Far," "Limbo," and "Drunk," and as a result exposed a different side of her persona. Unfortunately, the music-buying public was not ready for this type of transformation, and the album was received with lukewarm reviews from the critics. It is considered by few to be her best album, and it took some time for fans to embrace the album.
folks my age when I say that this album not only defined a sound and feel for Generation X,but also for many of the older set from Generation Y. This was a groundbreaking album, post-Nirvana. Billy Corgan gave us 28 searing, angry tracks that, for two hours, seemed to describe every feeling that every adolescent in the world experiences. This was Pink Floyd's The Wall for my generation, and this album completely blew my mind the first time I heard it.
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