My long-running Blogspot series on my memories of life and music in the 1990’s will also begin running here. Here’s the first part, originally posted in April 2009:
Hey, folks, does anything suck more than Baby Boomers talking about the 60’s? Did you, like me, watch that Just For Men “Summer Of Life” commercial and wish a lingering death from some kind of impacted anal fissures on the fifty-something douche pretending to play guitar while some blonde thirty-something douchette pretends to be attracted to him through gritted teeth while visions of her Just For Men commercial paycheck dance in her empty little head? Maybe Generation X-ers talking about the 90’s is just a tad more irritating and pointless – but that’s not going to stop me. I’m going to walk you through 300 of the best, worst, and/or most memorable tracks from 1990 through 1999.
Inspired by our Idle Time Decades project, I spent my 2009 spring break painstakingly compiling a 300-song 1990’s iTunes playlist, cued specifically to my own recollections. To quote the Jack Rabbit Slim’s slogan, it’s “The Next Best Thing To A Time Machine” (and if you don’t know what Jack Rabbit Slim’s is, turn in your 90’s card.) Listening to this playlist is akin to spinning the dial on the best Top 40 radio station of that decade. (Ironically, the 90’s marked the death of true Top 40 radio.) The 1990’s saw me going from a scrawny, gawky, 15-year-old high school freshman to a chubbier, only slightly less gawky, 25-year-old college graduate, father, and (soon-to-be-ex) husband. And of course, all of this growth and drama had a soundtrack.
Continue reading This Used To Be My Playground, Part 1: She’s My Cherry Pie