Reminisce with the shitty music you listened to in your youth.

This whole blog started as a rather ridiculous "things to do when you're bored" blog, and I'll be honest - I've led you all astray many times. Today, however, I'm going to lead by example with a rather practical use of your time. It's a memory exercise regarding all the music that led you into the person you are today. Seriously, be honest with yourself. It might sting a bit. I can guide you on some key steps in my personal musical journey, and hopefully I'll embarrass myself enough that you'll feel comfortable doing it to yourself.

1. Neil Diamond

I'm actually quite proud that my first memory of music, circa age 3 or 4, is of Neil Diamond's Hot August Night album. Specifically, I recall banging on a Fisher Price drum to "Cherry, Cherry." Listen and tell me that's not at least slightly cooler than growing up to a fucking purple dinosaur.
Click Here to listen to the whole damn album on Myspace, surprisingly enough.


1b. Teddy Ruxpin - I listened to a shitload of Teddy Ruxpin cassettes. Fine, I'm no better than the purple dinosaur reference. Guilty.


2. Restless Heart

I grew up in a country music household, and I rebelled by getting albums from Restless Heart around age 6. These dudes are fairly cheesy "country" pop. Twenty-one years later, I'm seeing the music video for one of their songs for the very first time. Awesomely cornball.


3. Debbie Gibson

What the fuck? I listened to Debbie Gibson! I had completely blocked this one out of my mind until randomly flipping through Vh1 last weekend and seeing Debbie talking about some other 80s artist. It all came rushing back to me, and I remembered that I had one (AND ONLY ONE) Debbie Gibson song...on a cassette SINGLE. It was this song...fucking embarrassing. But slightly better with comedians making fun of it.


4. Garth Brooks

Hopping right back into the "bad boys" of country music phase, I became a huge fan of the man who sang the least number of songs about pickup trucks, yet the highest number of songs referencing rodeos. Go figure. But for its time, when this song came out it certainly was a far cry from the rest of the country music genre I had to choose from. In fact, I'll actually blame Garth for the pop-music industry that "country" is today. By the way, I think my favorite part of this video is where Garth and his poor band is playing out in the middle of a thunderstorm (mics and amps LOVE rain water, in case you were wondering), and then magically at the end of the video, presumably in the same thunderstorm he just was playing music in, Garth shows up with a fresh change of clothes and a different cowboy hat. Shazaam!

garth brooks "the thunder rolls" @ Yahoo! Video


5. Counting Crows

"Mr. Jones" and "Rain King" altered my musical path greatly when I first heard them in 5th grade.


6. Boyz II Men

Why on Earth did they spell their name like that? Why did the dude with the deep voice always have to talk during songs? Who fucking cares? They gave us "End of the Road" and "I'll Make Love To You" and "Water Runs Dry" and...every other song you slow danced to for the better part of the decade. Unfortunately, the bastards at Universal disabled embedding their videos, so you're on your own to look them up.

...AND then I got into middle school and high school and all hell broke loose. I jacked friends' CDs and recorded them onto cassettes. Then I stumbled upon the internet. End of story.