It's been fifteen years, and I still don't get Wonderwall. Not the lyrics, not the message - just what the fuck everyone else saw in the thing. Just about the biggest song of the 1990s, the calling card of one of the biggest bands of their generation... and I have to admit, I never actually liked the bastard. Not then and not now. Not because I don't like Oasis - though at the time I thought they were wankers - just because they had better songs. Most of which were on Definitely Maybe. Noel and his fruit platter once said of his pre-Oasis songwriting stockpile, all his A1 material went on Definitely Maybe, the next best on Morning Glory, and by the time they got to Be Here Now he was out of killer and down to filler. And also very, very off chops on Charlie. So yeah, Wonderwall... it's OK, but it's no Shakermaker. Or Cigarettes & Alcohol. Or Supersonic...
I'm like that with The Iconic Songs/Albums Of Our Generation, though. I either missed the point for years on end, or never got it to this day. Smells Like Teen Spirit... yeah, it's a'ight. Angsty bit of thrash-punk. Not much to it. It didn't speak to me as a teen because basically I had fuck all substantive to be angsty about. I discovered Nevermind as an album (and a pretty fucking decent one it is, to be fair) about ten years after the fact. The Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Majik I was a much earlier adopter of. Got into that one about four or five years after its actual release date. Definitely Maybe? About ten years late. And likewise for most of the milestone albums of the 1990s. Pearl Jam Vs - a good eight years after the fact; likewise U2's Achtung Baby or Metallica's black album. Blur? Never really got them but after watching their Hyde Park reunion gig flying Air NZ transtasman the other week, it might be time to go raid iTunes. Occasionally, like with Reef's Glow, the Dandy Warhols' Come Down or Shihad's The General Electric I somehow contrived to trip over The Next Big Thing at the azimuth of their cred and be momentarily Incredibly Hipster Cool without actually intending to. Then I'd go and buy AC/DC's Ballbreaker or the best of Motley Crue (apparently there was some) and my CD collection would go back to being a romantic liability.
Which is the real point, after all. As an unattached seeker of luuurrrve in the Nineties and Noughties, if your CD collection wasn't getting you roots, what the fuck was it there for? If you've ever had to reorganise the most cringeworthy items of your collection to the back of the cabinet - or even had to pretend to be into some shithouse act in order to appear shaggable to some particular intended of the moment - you'll know of which I speak. A quick glance at someone's CDs told you more about that person than a series of intimate dates at the cheapest restaurants in the inner west would ever tease out of them. That girl with Pete Murray's Feeler welded into the carousel of her CD player, with So Beautiful no longer able to be played due to having laser burns etched into it from overplaying... she may have baggage. Possible red flag there. Britney, Christina, Mandy Moore... still mentally 12 years old. Proceed at own risk. Tori Amos... either significantly damaged, or a post-op trannie. Caveat emptor. Thirsty Merc or Collective Soul... Christian. Probably better off with the trannie. The Donnas... drunk and promiscuous; as Al Davis might have put it, just win, baby.
Which throws the question over to you, dear reader - what is either
(a) the album in your collection which has cost (or gained) you the most action, and/or
(b) the most shameful, cringeworthy band or performer you've pretended to be into in the pursuit (futile or otherwise) of romantic success.
Your time starts.... nnnnnnnow.
The Doctor is OUT.
