OK, this post is the official end to any coolness I ever had, and it dates me with great accuracy - but I've just got to say that a great big smile came across my face yesterday when "I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight" came on over the radio in my car yesterday. Mid-80's Top 40 is in some ways a terrible thing - but there's something so sincere and harmless about it, and of course it's also more than a little amusing. So, well, I suppose my response was more laughing at it, than loving it. But hey, not every association I have with the music of my middle school dances is a bad one. I guess that explains why I can still endure Wham!'s "Careless Whisper" too (not that I've heard it ... since the first President Bush was in office?). I guess songs like that bring back certain comfortable feelings and provide a great target for jokes too - so I guess maybe that explains why 80's songs are in such heavy rotation in bars across America.
Of course that gets at the fact that so much of our response to music is emtional and associative rather than having anything to do with the attributes of the tunes themselves. If I had the ability to, I'd destroy every copy of "Tax Man" by The Beatles, though I'll grant you that it's a far superior song by most measures to anything made by the Cutting Crew.
And with that I'll get back to work and listening to Grandaddy (which holds no bad memories for me at all).
Posted by armand at August 15, 2005 11:19 AM | TrackBack | Posted to Music