Way back when I was just a freshman in high school, two bands made it on to the scene that changed the music world: Nirvana and Pearl Jam. It's hard to believe that it's been twenty years since "Smells Like Teen Spirit" hit the airwaves. I remember sitting in English class and hearing my classmates talking about this new song unlike any they'd ever heard before. Where did this band come from? What was this "grunge" style of music? No one could figure it out, but everyone loved it. Including me.
The movie that epitomized the grunge music scene during the early nineties was Cameron Crowe's Singles, one of my favorite movies of all time and also my favorite soundtrack. I found it at Dimple last weekend for $2.99 (no, I didn't already own it - shameful, I know) and haven't stopped listening to it since Saturday. Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Mother Love Bone, Soundgarden, Alice in Chains - I've been musically reliving my teenage years all over again, and I love it. Here's a little clip, only one of my favorites from the movie (there are several, and I wanted to post the one from the end, but I didn't want to ruin it for those who haven't seen it yet. And if you haven't, please do yourself a favor and watch it. You will love it. I promise you.):
It occurred to me while I was listening to the soundtrack earlier this week how much fun it was to be in high school and as much into music as I was when Pearl Jam and Nirvana came out. Pearl Jam's Ten and Nirvana's Nevermind became staples of my music collection - I used to listen to Pearl Jam's Evenflow and Nirvana's Something in the Way about a million times and would never get tired of it. And I can still listen to both albums today and feel the same level of satisfaction that I did back then. There's been a lot of music that I've outgrown over the years, but those two bands have managed to hang on.
I've gotten back into listening to Pearl Jam in recent months - I got to see them for the first time in concert last fall at the Bridge School Benefit show in Mountain View, and even though it was brief, it was still amazing. They were the last band to play and it was worth the wait. This past July, Eddie Vedder came to the Paramount Theater in Oakland for his Ukelele Songs tour (he just came out with the album this summer - also an amazing listen) and I was fortunate enough to go. And, amazingly enough, I got to meet him after the show. I shook his hand, he looked me straight in the eye and said "Hi, Nicole." I have never felt my legs turn to jello faster than I did that night. Here in front of me was the frontman of the band I've loved for twenty years, the man my best friend wanted to marry when we were teenagers, the man whose music defined most of my teenage years. It was an unbelievable experience, one I will certainly never forget.
And here he is, twenty years later, still performing and still amazing.
It's been a real comfort listening to all of this music again. And at the risk of sounding old, they really don't make music like that anymore.
(And it's true - they don't.)
