rmgebhardt
08-04-2005, 06:54 AM
The greatest thing about trends, aside from the fact that they can make you feel like you're ahead of the curve if you get to them fast enough, is that they end. There's nothing more liberating than no longer having to wear neon orange with green. There's no greater feeling than ditching baggy pants with eighty-seven pockets in exchange for a nice pair of Docker's. And there's nothing better than jumping from grunge to nu-metal. Yes, trend death is an exciting time in everyone's life.
The real trouble, though, is that trends also, for some inane reason, have a way of coming around full circle. Remember when flares came back into style? "Retro" is every packrat's favorite word. Finally, after all these years, your pink leg warmers are back in style! It wasn't a waste of closet space after all!
This is kind of what looking at my monstrous CD collection is like. There are plenty of records in there that I absolutely adore and have since I picked them up. But there are also those blights on the collection, whether they be albums you picked up without really knowing what it was or albums that were just hip at the time.
Naturally, most people don't want to be thought of as having bad taste or not being up to date. So, as it goes, independent record stores ease the burden and allow you to sell used records to them, hoping some other sap will come by and pick them up. Plus they'll give you cash or store credit, so you can buy the latest album from some group that, had they been around two years prior, you would have been ridiculed for, but, since it's 2005, you are now a musical god amongst your peers. Yes, it's a wonderful feeling, a great trade. Which brings me back to my collection.
I have never, and never plan to, sell a CD. Even if I thought it was horrendous upon the first listen, it has stayed with me from its inauguration into the majesty that is my musical catalogue. Even when a record started to show its age, when everything that seemed so grand five years ago now sounded like crap, the records have stayed. After nu-metal died, nu-metal lived on, however shriveled, in my CD tower.
Sure, I could take a walk down the street and dump about fifty albums on the counter and walk out with some pretty badass CDs that would make me look quite awesome to those in the musical know. However, I am a packrat. I crave the day it's totally tubular to be into Cold again. And I also get to feel aloof because I never caved to trendiness. I may have moved on, but I never sold that part of me, that thing that made me who I was when I was sixteen, eighteen, twenty. As I watch hundreds of today's now-grown youth toss away old records like used tissues, I can't help but wonder if they realize that they're losing an integral part of themselves. While friends might mock them, those who keep their old CDs know deep down that the person doing the ridiculing most definitely owned that album at some point in their life and refuses to admit that they may have even loved it.
Being true to yourself doesn't mean you have to keep up with things from your past. Hell, do you think I ever bust out (hed) p.e. anymore? I sure as hell don't. But I know how much they meant to my teenage years, my formative years, the years that made me what I am today. And when I get the urge, the albums are always there, ready to go, just one more time, for old time's sake. So, make fun of my collection if you will, but I'm not the one who's trying to cover up something that, in the long run, really isn't that important. Hey, enjoy your new folk/emo/acoustic metalcore band, jackass. I'll take my Stabbing Westward records over that shit any day of the week. And ten years down the road, when you're listening to electro-funk-trip-hop-soul-pop, I'll still be able to throw on Darkest Days when I've had a shitty day.
--Ben Rice
The real trouble, though, is that trends also, for some inane reason, have a way of coming around full circle. Remember when flares came back into style? "Retro" is every packrat's favorite word. Finally, after all these years, your pink leg warmers are back in style! It wasn't a waste of closet space after all!
This is kind of what looking at my monstrous CD collection is like. There are plenty of records in there that I absolutely adore and have since I picked them up. But there are also those blights on the collection, whether they be albums you picked up without really knowing what it was or albums that were just hip at the time.
Naturally, most people don't want to be thought of as having bad taste or not being up to date. So, as it goes, independent record stores ease the burden and allow you to sell used records to them, hoping some other sap will come by and pick them up. Plus they'll give you cash or store credit, so you can buy the latest album from some group that, had they been around two years prior, you would have been ridiculed for, but, since it's 2005, you are now a musical god amongst your peers. Yes, it's a wonderful feeling, a great trade. Which brings me back to my collection.
I have never, and never plan to, sell a CD. Even if I thought it was horrendous upon the first listen, it has stayed with me from its inauguration into the majesty that is my musical catalogue. Even when a record started to show its age, when everything that seemed so grand five years ago now sounded like crap, the records have stayed. After nu-metal died, nu-metal lived on, however shriveled, in my CD tower.
Sure, I could take a walk down the street and dump about fifty albums on the counter and walk out with some pretty badass CDs that would make me look quite awesome to those in the musical know. However, I am a packrat. I crave the day it's totally tubular to be into Cold again. And I also get to feel aloof because I never caved to trendiness. I may have moved on, but I never sold that part of me, that thing that made me who I was when I was sixteen, eighteen, twenty. As I watch hundreds of today's now-grown youth toss away old records like used tissues, I can't help but wonder if they realize that they're losing an integral part of themselves. While friends might mock them, those who keep their old CDs know deep down that the person doing the ridiculing most definitely owned that album at some point in their life and refuses to admit that they may have even loved it.
Being true to yourself doesn't mean you have to keep up with things from your past. Hell, do you think I ever bust out (hed) p.e. anymore? I sure as hell don't. But I know how much they meant to my teenage years, my formative years, the years that made me what I am today. And when I get the urge, the albums are always there, ready to go, just one more time, for old time's sake. So, make fun of my collection if you will, but I'm not the one who's trying to cover up something that, in the long run, really isn't that important. Hey, enjoy your new folk/emo/acoustic metalcore band, jackass. I'll take my Stabbing Westward records over that shit any day of the week. And ten years down the road, when you're listening to electro-funk-trip-hop-soul-pop, I'll still be able to throw on Darkest Days when I've had a shitty day.
--Ben Rice