by Blake Olsen
Listening
to music is the only thing in the world that resembles what it's like to fall
in love. As we go through life we develop a relationship with music, and just
like a human relationship there are moments when our love is intensified,
fueled, exposed, and broadened. Discovering music is very much like your first
kiss. There will always be the memory of the first time you experienced it and
every subsequent thing from that moment falls under the initial connection.
This is one of the purest and most exhilarating moments one can experience in
life.
1-Phil Collins: In The Air Tonight
I
was very young, about four or five years old, sitting in the car with my dad
who was listening to this song. I remember watching him listen to it, seeing
how it was completely in control of both of us. No matter where I am at in my
life, no matter what my past is or my future holds, this song and that moment
is a part of me forever.
2-Queen: Bohemian Rhapsody
My
first encounter with this song was with my older cousin when we were kids, he
put it on while he played Nintendo. This song came into my soul and left
room for nothing else in the world. Even being nine or ten, I was captivated by the
contrasting sounds and the intensity of both hope and hopelessness that are
present. Only Queen can make you feel strong when you're sad and vulnerable
when you are happy. That dichotomy is probably responsible for this being
my single favorite song ever.
3-Red Hot Chili
Peppers: By The Way
The
first time I heard this song, I felt like I had seemingly heard this in another
galaxy a trillion years ago, where it had been the expression of every feeling
any 16 year-old kid had ever come in contact with in the known universe. I may
have heard this song more than any other song I know, and I still have the same
ephemeral feeling of magnitude come over me each time. It makes me feel very
tiny and very insignificant in a very wonderful way.
4-Queens of the Stone
Age: Go With The Flow
This
song is like being blindside by a tsunami of sound and taken to a place on
earth where color is inverted and space and time are magnified until everything
seems very fast and very far apart. This song can both send souls to eternity
and raise the dead. This was one of the first songs I ever felt like I had a
generational claim to; as if this music was specifically for me, and the type
of person I was.
5-Grouch & Eligh of
the Living Legends: Remember Who You Are
I
had never paid much attention to what hip-hop had to offer. Then one night, I
was with a girl who I was convinced was the coolest person on the planet, she
put this song on as she drove me home while the sun came up. I was one kind of
person until that night, but sitting next to her, as the song played, the sun
came up, and shined on a brand new version of me. That was one of the most
powerful and important moments I have ever experienced with music. An entire
wing of the musical universe was opened to me in a matter of minutes. That
time, that person, that song, that feeling, changed me forever.
6-Pink Floyd: Time
I
have always had a terrible weakness for nostalgia. I hate my birthday, it makes
me sad. I hate New Years, it makes me feel like I'm losing something. This song
is the only song I know that captures the feeling of realizing lost or wasted
time. That pit in your stomach when you want to grab time, slow it down and
milk every last second out of it, but knowing it’s beyond impossible, and
accepting the unchangeable truth that time marches on, regardless of how we may
try to hold it against its will. When I came to understand the philosophical
ramifications of this song, it became something more than a song; it became a
reminder of the fragility of life and the exception power music has in it.
7-Madvillain: ALL CAPS
MF
DOOM is an artistic genius. Perhaps what I appreciate most of his music is the
way he makes the music bigger than himself. So often in hip-hop MC's are too concerned
with maximizing themselves, and this comes at the cost of diminishing overall
sound. MF DOOM, or as he is called on this album, Madvillain, is a pure and
almost holy vessel between what hip-hop should be, and what we hear. The first
time I heard this song with its patched samples and bleak piano hook, I
realized what hip-hop music should be, but almost never is. No song represents hip-hop
more clearly than this track. "Just remember ALL CAPS when you spell the
man name."
8-Cut Copy: Hearts On Fire
Having
been the repeat recipient of a broken heart, I have come to cherish seminal
moments I have with the opposite sex. The unexpected nature of these encounters
along with the great and humbling moment of a connection with a person you
hardly know is one of my very favorite things in the world. I could say the
same for the way I found this song, walking alone on a beach in California on a
hazy Thanksgiving morning. This song captures that fleeting, adrenaline rush of
a moment of attraction that is ultimately the reason we're all here.
9-Kid Cudi: Sky Might Fall
I
got into Cudi during the darkest, most depressing era of my life. While the
sound of his music captures the darkness, his words work in contrast, with hope;
something I was not always able to hang on to. Much of his work, and this song
in particular is about letting go of that which we truly cannot control, and
accepting who we are and why we matter. This song was in many ways the musical
life support during those hard times, and now I draw great strength from
listening to it and considering what it helped me through. I don't think
there's an artist I feel more connected to personally than Cudi, even though
I've never met him. His work is incredibly and powerfully intimate.
10-Arcade Fire: Modern Man
As
I've come into adulthood, I've always set out to become a person who is with
the times. For better or worse, this is an endeavor that is mostly trial and
error. Music, style, food, dating are all things that I fail at more than I
succeed. However, when there is breakthrough, it is highly rewarding. This
song, in four minutes and forty seconds, explains what it’s like to try and
fail, and try and succeed. The lyrics in this song and the entire album have
become a narrative to my existence as a person trying his best to become a
better man, to progress and achieve, and not always succeeding.
11-The Killers: When You Were Young
The
first time I heard this song, it scraped a part of my soul that I didn't even
know was there, this song is a lyrical expression of pure nostalgia. Being a
child and conceptualizing the world a certain way, growing up in a cruel world,
and coming to know forgiveness and the power of moving forward, while
remembering that the mistakes you make cause you be the person you are. This
song reminds me of how beautiful life is.
12-The Mars Volta: Take The Veil Cerpin Taxt
I
tried for years to understand the appeal of The Mars Volta. For years, it never
really sounded like anything but noise and chaos. Until a particular time when
I heard this song, the last song on their debut album, and I realized what The
Mars Volta really were. Ironically, they are noise, and they are chaos. But
they're orchestrated noise, and organized chaos. Somehow, in some way, they
take traditional aspects of music and obliterate them, gut them and filet them
into something completely different, and their finished product is this
uber-graphic and unceasingly vivid version of reality that doesn't casually
keep you interested, but chokes you within an inch of your life until you
comprehend and concede to its purpose and will. This purpose and will is
something very big and very haunting, and you don't really understand it all at
once, but you can not deny the actuality of its presence. This song tore me
apart and rearranged me a hundred times over until I became exactly what it needed
me to be to properly appreciate the power of it.
These
are just a handful reasons why I love music. The best part is that there are
more songs, more moments like this out there waiting for all of us. Music is in
you, it's in me, it can never die, and it can never be held down. It is the
most powerful force in humanity. If you personally don't have songs like this
for yourself, go out and find them. They're out there for you.
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