Everyone remembers the first album they bought themselves, mine was a tape of Michael Jackson's ''Thriller'' that I got on one of my Dad and I's Saturday adventures. Adventures with Dad always meant a little treat at some point bought conspiratorially together, whether it was a slice from Pizza Maletti's or something made of plaster, glitter and sea shells. I remember that thrill the day, aged 8, I chose "Thriller from the box of tapes by the counter of one of the second hand record shops on Berrick St. The start of my musical collection.
To this day the tape still resides in on of the shoe boxes of tapes my hoarding family haven't thrown out. Over christmas I was home and staying in the spare room where the sound system has all but broken except for the tape deck. So it was that I found myself on Christmas Eve wrapping presents to the sounds of 'Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'', 'P.Y.T', 'Beat It' and the rest. The whole box was full of sounds of my childhood, everything from my Dad's BB King and Paul Weller to my mum's Joan Osbourne and a Lady Sings the Blues tape that was a summer holiday car essential. Listening to the these once such loved songs I was taken aback by how strong the memories triggered by each of them were. Also at how to this day I still know all the words to Simply Red's Fairground due to my Mum's minor obsession at one point, despite the fact that Mick Hucknall is arguably the most repulsive man ever. Rodriguez was summer in France, Van Morrison rainy sundays making dens, The Lion King soundtrack recalling my sister's epic reenactments of the scene where baby Simba is held aloft before all the animals.
These tapes with their cracked plastic cases and little plastic cogs that I now can only wind up with my little finger are tiny glimpses at childhood. This is the same for so many albums, songs or snippets of music. Cat Power's 'The Greatest' reminds me of my halls in first year. Usher 'You Make Me Wanna' the beginning of secondary school, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston and Toni Braxton the start of an ongoing obsession with female vocalists. This the sound of a friday night.
That's partly what makes music powerful, what it triggers, what it evokes. Yeah, so The Spice Girls weren't exactly lyrical or muscial geniuses but you start singing 'Wannabe' to any girl between the ages of 24 and 20 and they will join in and be able to finish off the line. Music's not just about the best guitar line ever written or a killer vocal, it's also that song that comes on someone else's itunes that you haven't heard in years, an album playing in a shop that reminds you of home, hell it might even be the jazzy tones of a ginger dreadlocked lothario.
3 comments:
This is such an elaborate lie, I know your first record was Ant'n'Dec. (Also "ginger dreadlocked lothario"...shudder)
To be honest if I had been talking about CD's I'd have had a lot less to be proud of. The Spice Girls and not even a good album and I think there was a bit of Ja Rule knocking around!
I enjoyed this so much. It reminds me of the time my brother and I were allowed to buy our very first tapes. I chose TLC - No Scrubs, my brother selected the infamous Eiffel 65 - Blue Da Ba Dee (less credible). We fought over the portable cassette player all the way home.
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