a long, long time ago, i uploaded some of these songs for my readers to enjoy. no reviews on them, but, clearly, the fact that i’ve handpicked them is an indication that i think they’re pretty cool. enjoy.
This is my first real post-migration post on musicbybeans. As I read over my old blog posts, I am reminded of many things: I used to be much more reflective. I used to be a mildly entertaining writer (regardless of the fact that the only person being entertained was yours truly). And I used to love writing more – it was a real hobby. I took a year-long hiatus from blogging and since then, my desire for writing has gone through multiple iterations of hot-and-cold ups and downs; I’d read a nice piece by Munro or Updike on New Yorker or I’d come across my lonesome Moleskine wanting some bit of my attention – or at least my pen’s. Then I’d get all inspired to write again.
Then the busyness of life hits and then I catch myself thinking ‘who has time for all this?” as if I have an infant to care for or something. I think over the past year, I just grew too busy for self-reflection…and that’s a shame, indeed. A few friends of mine who know me quite well ask if I still journal regularly. That’s another moment when I think, “No, but I really ought because I really want to.” Not just writing, but I also took a mini break from ravenous consumption of music. I used to cough up $10 on Q magazine every month when I was 23 and just spend an entire night reading through the darn thing, filling my world with thoughts about rock stars of today and the legendary songwriters of yesterday. I remembering having no qualms about spending a Friday evening alone: picking up a mini cheesecake from Junior’s, enduring the commute home, cooking myself a simple meal, and cuddling up with the newest Q and, finally, savoring my chocolate swirl cheesecake. In between bites of my cheesecake, I sincerely wondered what it’d be like to go to Glastonbury Festival or to go to a concert in one of the many Carling Academies.
But none of these have anything to do with ’24 hour party people,’ do they? It does, though, really. Besides the fact that a revisit to this ‘rockumentary,’ the first one I watched, really, after my return from my 2-year Asia stint, albeit a year later, this film is all about my favorite genre of music: Madchester. The film was informative, entertaining, and absolutely chock full of good Madchester tunes by The Buzzcocks, Joy Division/ New Order, Happy Mondays, The Durutti Column, and Jefferson Marshall, to name a few. It literally goes deep into the history of the explosion of the post-punk music scene that gave birth to new wave, house, and eventually into ‘Britpop.’ It chronicles the fascinating, slowly-but-surely ways in which a Manchester club called Hacienda, financed and run by a reporter-turned-club manager Tony Wilson, was served as a concert venue and an outlet for musical creativity that resulted in not only commercial success of dozens of bands of the Factory Records label, but turn the attention of the music world to this town. The film mentioned that by early to mid-90s, University of Manchester was the most popular university in the UK, drawing the most number of college entrance applications. How’s that for influence?
Most readers may think ‘so what? I don’t really care for all that old 80s British stuff anyway.’ But what they may not realize that this burst of creativity that spanned a decade or so played such an influential role in the lives of musicians that they may know and love today; Billy Corgan of Smashing Pumpkins is known to have worshipped New Order and have repeatedly named them as their biggest musical influence, eventually collaborating with New Order (‘New Dawn Fades’ and ‘Turn This Way’). Oasis, whose influence bred the grounds of expansion for mega-Britpop bands like Coldplay and Blur, is a direct Manchester export who grew up on punk and post-punk music. Radiohead touts The Smiths as a huge source of influence and yet another band that grew up listening, imitating, fantasizing about Johnny Marr’s guitar lines and Morrissey’s crooning tunes. Their song ‘Knives Out’ is a direct homage to The Smiths, yet another Mancunian royalty. Even Kenny Chesney said…nah, just kidding.
In other words, Madchester rocked the world in the 80s and 90s. And New Order will always matter.
