[We're resetting Burn Your Hits with an eye toward 100 Songs for 2016, coming December 12! This blog has been through a lot in its eight years of existence. New name, new platform, same sporadic posting. Old pages have moved, links are broken, everything is hard to find. So, between now and December 12, we're re-posting each year-end 100 Songs list, with updated Spotify and Box links. Everything works now, probably. Enjoy!]
[Original Post: December 10, 2012]
***
***
"We can't change the
present or the future. We can only
change the past, and we do it all the time." - Bob Dylan
***
It was a summer of speeches.
In ballrooms and banquet halls, folded into church pews, crouched
awkwardly on tasteful indoor/outdoor furniture, I sat and listened to all the well-wishers who just wanted to say a few words, on this day of all days,
in honor of best friends, oldest daughters, baby brothers, new sisters-in-law.
Everyone wanted to remember.
Everyone had a story to tell, from decades ago, back before all this,
when the guests of honor were toddlers, teenagers, college freshmen, new kids
in town, strange faces at the office. Each
story described, in painstaking detail, a lifetime of awkward
misunderstandings, questionable fashion choices, forgotten pop culture
obsessions, dated haircuts, slapstick accidents, every sitcom plotline come to
life.
We laughed and laughed.
And then, when the laughter died down, we looked over at the
bride and groom, mischievous grins replaced with proud smiles, and we remarked
to each other how proud we were, how far we had come, how we couldn't believe
that the awkward kid was all grown up, had found the love of his life, had met
the one person who would always be there for her. And we raised our glasses to continued
success and happiness.
But, hold on. Isn't it
kind of amazing that we all turned out so well when pretty much every one of
our past incarnations was just barely functional as a human being? How does that
work?
***
Honestly, is there any version of your past-tense self that
doesn't leave you mortified?
Grade-School Aaron wore a Dallas Cowboys Starter jacket, had
those Vanilla Ice horizontal lines cut into the side of an otherwise normal
haircut, and thought Rush Limbaugh was pretty funny.
High School Aaron would tell you that all good music had been
made before he was born, devoured anything Star Wars-related, and would have
worn nothing but AND1-brand clothing had that been a possibility.
College Aaron voted for Ralph Nader, ate pizza rolls as a meal
at least three times a week, and couldn't run a mile without collapsing in a
panting heap.
Law School Aaron watched an entire season of Entourage in one sitting, earnestly
maintained a MySpace account, and wore a Crown Royal t-shirt on the second day
of classes under the assumption that this would make people think he was cool.
Three take-aways from that little trip down memory lane: One, it took me a shockingly short period of
time to think of those examples. I'm
sure that there are hundreds more, and I'm sure that Elliot Mann will list all
of them in the comments.
Two, those are the faults that make me sound endearing. There are plenty of things about my past
selves that aren't as likely to elicit a chuckle. Past Aaron acted like endless sarcasm somehow
worked as a personality, thought that quoting from movies and TV shows was the
same as having a sense of humor, and generally walked around like he thought he
was better than everyone and everything.
So … I'm going to stick with surface flaws, if that's okay. Maybe we'll delve deeper in next year's
essay.
Three, armed with an understanding of this inescapable pattern,
how do you attempt to interact with Future You?
Because, honestly, the best you can hope for is that Future You looks
back with a knowing smile and a slow, almost disbelieving shake of the head. "Oh
yeah, 2012 Aaron. That guy sure thought
he had it all figured out, didn't he?"
I'm pretty okay with my current self, but I acknowledge that I
come from a long line of idiots who shared my name and social security
number. Is there any reason to believe
that Future You isn't going to add Present You to that list of idiots?
***
How do you earn Future You's approval? I guess there are two ways you could attack
the problem. One, you could run headlong
into the screaming, unknowable future, embracing anything and everything,
shedding identities almost at random in an attempt to flash-evolve into the
kind of person Future You might like.
When you don't know where you're going, the important thing is to get
there as fast as possible, right?
Two, you could cease all motion completely. If you never change anything, then Future You
will be exactly the same as Present You.
Look, you dragged Future You down to your level! You won!
On second thought, that doesn't sound like a victory.
***
I think about both of these potential paths when listening to
new music. Does falling in love with a
new band mean, on some level, becoming a new person? Does endlessly replaying that new album by an
old favorite mean you're stuck in a rut?
I'm pretty comfortable answering that second question with a
"no." That first question,
though, is exciting and potentially terrifying and I think the answer might be
"yes."
***
There was a period this year where I listened to nothing but the
new albums from the Mountain Goats, AC Newman, Japandroids, Gaslight Anthem,
and Passion Pit. Every so often, I would
wonder why I wasn't discovering any new bands.
I wondered if I had hit some kind of wall, if this was it, if twenty
years from now I would still be listening to these same bands and only these same
bands, obliviously boring hapless party guests with stories about the Good Old
Days.
There was a period this year where I listened to nothing but
Purity Ring, Charli XCX, Crystal Castles, Tanlines, and Young Galaxy. Every so often, I would wonder what had
happened to all my old favorites. I
wondered why those old bands didn't resonate with me anymore, why I was so
quick to throw them overboard and move on to the next thing, if that
remorseless detachment said anything about deeper character flaws in me. I wondered if I would always be drifting,
chasing trends, resigned to the fickle tastes of Pitchfork and the Hype
Machine.
How was I to choose between those two listening philosophies?
***
Here's the thing, though: this is a false dichotomy. Of course it's a false dichotomy. It's easy to set up a problem by claiming,
"These are the two choices, and you
have to choose." It's even
easier to respond by saying, "Well,
what if I didn't have to choose?
Wouldn't that solve the problem?" And yeah, it would.
And actually, I think it goes further than that. I think that collection of idiot Past Yous is
absolutely necessary to the potential happiness of Future You. You grow by adding, not by replacing.
I know this is how it happened with me. Start with that awkward kid, hopefully not still
wearing the Cowboys Starter jacket but probably wearing something equally
ridiculous. Fourteen, maybe fifteen years old.
Horrible taste in music. He loves
Blues Traveler, he loves Sublime, he loves the Eagles, he loves dozens of
comically derivative Christian rock bands.
Now start adding, slowly at first, then sometimes too quickly, maybe more than he can process, but keep going. Add Talking Heads, add Stone Roses, add The
Clash. Add hundreds of people, friends and classmates and co-workers, with their
own tastes and opinions. Add places, foods, drinks, the impersonal march of
history. Add the internet. The whole thing. Keep adding.
Each layer makes the next layer possible. But you had to start with that kid. Without him, it doesn't work. And give that kid some credit - from the
beginning, he loved the Beatles, and Parliament Funkadelic, and Outkast, though
at the time he just knew Outkast as the stuff the older kids listened to at basketball
camp. Add, don't replace.
***
This year, I'm a guy who loves The Hold Steady and CHVRCHES. Last year, I was a guy who loved The Hold
Steady and had never heard of CHVRCHES, largely because they didn't exist. This new version of me is incrementally
happier, just slightly more interesting, more open to new experiences, more
willing to embrace things I previously would have seen as foreign and
weird. Every new band has that effect on
me. But they're all building on those
Beatles records, those Shins records, those Hold Steady records ... even those
f***ing Eagles records. I once owned a
Kid Rock CD. I paid real money for it, at a time when I was making something like $6.50 an hour washing dishes at an all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. It hurts to admit that, but
it's still part of who I am, how I see the world, no different than the fact
that I once saw the Libertines in front of like 100 people at 7th Street
Entry. You don't shed the past, you just
use it to process the present. And the
future.
***
It doesn't mean keeping everything forever. I certainly wouldn't want to keep Kid Rock forever, and even some recent favorites have fallen by the wayside. I lost Band of Horses somewhere this year,
and The National, and Yeasayer. I know I
loved those bands at one point, but now they just don't hit like they used to. I'm not sure if I feel the same way about
Ellie Goulding anymore, and I have my suspicions about Free Energy going
forward. It's okay. That happens.
You can't keep everything. And
you shouldn't.
***
So here is a list of 100 songs.
We're going to take these songs, and we're going to add them to Present
You, add them to all the songs you love today, all the songs you can't believe
you loved ten years ago, all the songs you once hated but now think are kind of
okay, all the guilty pleasures that evolved into just-regular-pleasures, all
the old favorites that you've now heard so many times that you're going to
start screaming if anyone so much as hums three seconds of the chorus.
And you start with Present You, and you add something to it,
and the results cannot possibly be anything but positive. Because you're adding.
And you'll add more stuff next year, and the year after that,
and songs that you won't hear for two more years will inform the way you react
to songs that you won't hear for five more years. And eventually all those reactions will add
up, and they'll change you ever so slightly, and then ever so slightly again, and
somewhere along the line you'll become a demonstrably different person, and
Future You will look back at Present You and laugh at your stupid phone. You
thought that thing was so cool! What
was wrong with you?
You two might like some of the same stuff, but for your sake I hope it's
not much, because the difference will be all the great new stuff you
added between now and then. You're going to look ridiculous
to Future You, probably for a number of reasons. There really isn't much you can do about
it. Which, I guess, is kind of the
point.
***
(1) Japandroids – “The House that Heaven Built”
(2) Carly Rae Jepsen – “Call Me Maybe”
(3) CHVRCHES – “The Mother We Share”
(4) Tanlines – “Brothers”
(5) Trails and Ways – “Mtn Tune”
(6) The Shins – “Simple Song”
(7) Kitten Berry Crunch – “Black and Blue”
(8) Blur – “Under the Westway”
(9) HAIM – “Forever”
(10) Passion Pit – “Love is Greed”
(11) Cloud Nothings – “Stay Useless”
(12) The Very Best – “Kondaine”
(13) The Mowgli’s – “San Francisco”
(14) Cher Lloyd – “Want U Back”
(15) Of Monsters and Men – “Little Talks”
(16) Bruce Springsteen – “Wrecking Ball”
(17) The Coup – “The Magic Clap”
(18) Icona Pop – “I Love It”
(19) Taylor Swift – “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”
(20) Purity Ring – “Fineshrine”
(21) Van She – “Idea of Happiness”
(22) Elite Gymnastics – “Andreja 4-Ever”
(23) Niki & The Dove – “Tomorrow”
(24) Charli XCX – “You’re the One”
(25) Gaslight Anthem – “45”
(26) Scissor Sisters – “Baby Come Home”
(27) Young Galaxy – “Youth is Wasted on the Young”
(28) Tanlines – “All of Me”
(29) Japandroids – “Adrenaline Nightshift”
(30) BBU – “The Hood”
(31) Gaslight Anthem – “Here Comes My Man”
(32) Young Galaxy – “Shoreless Kid”
(33) Scissor Sisters – “San Luis Obispo”
(34) Generationals – “Lucky Numbers”
(35) Charli XCX – “Stay Away”
(36) Superchunk – “This Summer”
(37) Sourpatch – “Cynthia Ann”
(38) Chairlift – “I Belong In Your Arms”
(39) Kitten – “Cut It Out”
(40) Black Light Dinner Party – “Older Together”
(41) HAIM – “Don’t Save Me”
(42) Frank Ocean – “Sweet Life”
(43) Mountain Goats – “The Diaz Brothers”
(44) AC Newman – “There’s Money In New Wave”
(45) Carly Rae Jepsen – “Turn Me Up”
(46) Alabama Shakes – “Hold On”
(47) Trails and Ways – “Nunca”
(48) Metric – “Breathing Underwater”
(49) Kotki Dwa – “Poison”
(50) The Killers – “Runaways”
(51) Passion Pit – “It’s Not My Fault, I’m Happy”
(52) Kate Boy – “Northern Lights”
(53) CHVRCHES - “Lies”
(54) Solange – “Losing You”
(55) Muse – “Madness”
(56) Mountain Goats – “Harlem Roulette”
(57) Allo Darlin’ – “Capricornia”
(58) AC Newman – “Not Talking”
(59)Jessie Ware – “Wildest Moments”
(60)Tegan and Sara – “Closer”
(61) Frank Ocean - “Pyramids”
(62) Taylor Swift - “22”
(63) Palma Violets - “Best of Friends”
(64) Chromatics – “Kill For Love”
(65) Santigold – “The Keepers”
(66) Ellie Goulding – “Anything Could Happen”
(67) Fun. – “Out on the Town”
(68) Free Energy – “Electric Fever”
(69) Foxy Shazam – “Holy Touch”
(70) Miike Snow – “God Help This Divorce”
(71) Santigold – “The Riot’s Gone”
(72) Waxahatchee – “Grass Stain”
(73) Yellow Ostrich – “Stay at Home”
(74) The Shins – “It’s Only Life”
(75) The Henry Clay People – “Hide”
(76) The Coup – “The Guillotine”
(77) Crystal Castles – “Affection”
(78) Shout Out Louds - “Blue Ice”
(79) Kate Boy - “In Your Eyes”
(80) Wintersleep – “In Came the Flood”
(81) Aimee Mann – “Charmer”
(82) Seye – “White Noise”
(83) Tilly and the Wall – “Static Expressions”
(84) Earlimart – “10 Years”
(85) Grass Widow – “Disappearing Industries”
(86) Stars – “The Theory of Relativity”
(87) Youngblood Hawke – “We Come Running”
(88) Titus Andronicus – “Upon Viewing Oregon’s Landscape With the Flood of Detritus”
(89) Craig Finn – “No Future”
(90) Dr. Dog – “Lonesome”
(91)Tame Impala – “Feels Like We Only Go Backward”
(92) Saturday Looks Good to Me – “Sunglasses”
(93) Prince – “RNR Affair”
(94) Islands – “Hallways”
(95) Mika – “Overrated”
(96) MØ - “Pilgrim”
(97) Summer Heart – “I Wanna Go”
(98) Anthony Hamilton – “Home By Five”
(99) Saint Lou Lou – “Maybe You”
(100) The Killers – “From Here On Out”
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