WHEN I was 18, i listened to a lot of songs both the malay and english ones. I tried my best to keep track with many songs played on different radio stations. That was the time back in 1994 to 1995 when there were two prominent english radio stations: Times Highway Radio (THR) and Radio 4. And i think i was one of those who missed the starting era of Grunge music when I just got to learn about Nirvana after their main guy, Kurt Cobain died for over 6 months. Being a natural fan of hard rock music and glam rock, I did not take that long to begin immersing myself listening to Nirvana's music especially when one of my A-level college housemates was one of its big fan.
Eighteen was indeed the time when Grunge music mania were spread throughout the world. College and high school kids were thought to be cool when they were playing their cassetts on all sorts of english and american grunge bands in their walkman. While some of the glam-rock bands still managed to gain some popularity amongst the kids like Bon Jovi, GNR and Aerosmith, these rock kapak fans began to show off their likeness towards Grunge bands to get that included feelings. Such was a natural thing to do especially considering that teenage times were always more on the jumping on the same bandwagon and doing what was deemed cool among the majority. If u didnt know Nirvana, you were probably belonged to some ancient, totally uncool group. People talked about SoundGarden (my fav song back then from this group was Black Hole Sun), Pearl Jam and many other Grunge-influenced bands where many of them originated from Seattle, USA as if they knew those group members personally.
That was the time also when Mariah Carey got bigger and bigger (both her global success as well as her head, the pre-boob job and pre-sarong nangka period) and Whitney Houston was beginning to sink bit by bit heading for some rock bottom since her union with the troubled Bobby Brown.
I wasnt sure whether it was due to not much of airplay or those radio stations during my higher secondary school time only picked those rock songs which had a stronger local fan base like Metallica that I only learned about songs like Creep by Radiohead in the end of 1994 or so. It is still one of my favourite all-time grunge-punk song. That time too was my 1st time ever I got to listen to the whole Metallica:Black album. Prior to that, I only heard their two famous songs: Nothing Else Matters and Enter Sandman in 1991 on the radio.
Wait a sec....aaahh...yea, being someone who has spent all her lower and higher secondary school times in the boarding school and the fact that it imposed the law that we were NOT allowed to bring even a radio transistor to school had deprived me of such opportunity to follow any latest update on the international music scenes. The most i could get to listen to was during some radio playing in the Dining Hall (dewan makan) as well as at our school canteen. Somehow, they only chose to play Radio 1 on the sunday morning for the Pujaan 10 Nescafe, Radio Muzik every night and day and few other times they'd switched to Radio KL and Radio 3 Shah Alam. Everytime I got the chance to go back home or if it was a long term break, i'd hooked meself up to our home radio by tuning to radio 4. Apparently, that was the only 100% english broadcast radio station available during my secondary years. Pathetic huh? A-Level time and THR began its nationwide airplay. Unfortunately, both radio 4 and THR are now defunct. Good thing there are a lot of radio station choices around like Hitz.FM, Mix.FM, Light.FM, XFresh.FM and Fly.FM.
Between the year 1994 to 1995, compilation albums hit the market like some kinda plague. We had these music compilations of both malay and english songs whereby a cassette would offer a selection of all the top hits song around the year. You can get a mixed-masala compilations based on the radio hits or those albums dedicated to a certain type of music like The best of Alternative Songs of The Year or The Best Pop Songs of The Year and so on. It was also the time when Grammy Award song nominees were also featured in a special Grammy compilation. Movie OST (original soundtrack) were also very popular ever since The Bodyguard movie OST became one of the top sellers of the year (1992). You could even get a dangdut compilation album, which happened to be quite a popular choice among the middle-age crisis malay fellas.
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I was tagged by
Pugly to choose ONLY five nostalgic songs during the time when I was eighteen. But only FIVE songs? I could do like more than 30 favourite songs, or songs that reminded me of a certain occassion , a certain trip, a certain feelings, teenage angst and rebellious streaks, and so on.
The tagged message goes something like this:
Blast from the past
The rules are simple:
- Go to Pop Culture Madness site.
- Pick the year you turned 18 years old.
- Get yourself nostalgic over the songs that year.
- Write something about how those songs affected you.
- Pass it on to 5 more friends.
I reckon that I had better stick with the original rules and here is the list of the songs that reminded me much of the time when I was 18:
1. On Bended Knee: Boyz II Men
I can still remember almost all the lyrics by heart. On Bended Knee followed their huge success on their evergreen love songs like
End of the Road and
It's so hard to say goodbye to yesterday , just to name a few. The same year, their other song from the same album,
I'll make love to you also became widely played but only much later did i realise the sensual effect of it. That doesnt mean that i wasnt aware of the lyrics' message as it did lead to some romantic imaginations and fantasies. This song reminded me of the few crushes I had during my A-Level studies and how I wish I could have a boyfriend or a guy who adored me. I had two admirers and went out with one of them when I was 17 yet nothing all through my 18 years old time.
2.
Waterfalls: TLC
It's purely due to the funky sound of it and that amazing CGI videoclip. That time, I wished I had a body like them. I think that was mostly due to my inferiority complex feelings that had engulfed my mind leading me to think negatively of how i looked and so on during my teenage years all the way to the age of 22.
3. I Swear: All-4-One
The main jingle of the first 6 months of my A-Level years. Apart from that song, my A-Level housemates and I also listened to another two of the All-4-One hit songs: I can love you like that and So much in love. Nevertheless, I Swear was definitely the 1st song that reminisced the time when all five of us got to know each other and became a close clique.
4. Always: Bon Jovi
That was in the early 1995 that this song became a great hit in Malaysia. It was featured in the Bon Jovi first ever greatest compilation hit songs album called: Crossroad. This album was also the first Bon Jovi cassette I had and I really liked listening to most of the songs. I even bought the Crossroad videoclips compilation VCR due to my increasing affinity towards this glam rock band. I also had a crush on Jon Bon Jovi while one of my housemates developed a great fondness towards Mark Owen of Take That during those time. A year later, such crazy feelings has gone away and it left me with funny memories. On the contrary, that ex-housemate continued to nurture her feelings towards Mark Owen throughout the A-level years and it kept going on during her Undergraduate years.
5. Can you feel the love tonight: Elton John
This song was featured in the Disney's Lion King movie OST and instantly became one of the greatest hits in 1994. I actually find the song funny in the beginning what with Elton's emphasizing the word: vagabond.....However, after a while, I grew to love listening to it more and more and I still do. The lyrics said a bit about me when I was 18, of my struggle to overcome that inferiority complex feelings that seemed to hound me during those days. It didnt affect my personality per se but it did make me come up with silly thoughts and hypotheses as a result of making some physical comparisons with my sisters and girls around me. Consequently, I kept seeing myself as the unattractive being in a narrow scope. Alhamdulillah, I have managed to overcome such low feelings as I turned 23. I began to receive positive responses and growing attentions from men since then and improved social and people skills in general. It is amazing how wonderful life is when you learn about yourself more by identifying your weaknesses and strengths with a clear mind and how to manipulate them such that they would empower you in turn. In the hindsight, i really rejoiced those feelings of embracing myself inside out and knowing how to bring about and evoke my hidden potentials and so on.
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Now, I must decide on tagging another 5 people who may be kind enough to share their favourite old school songs with us and have yet to be asked to do so (within my knowledge that is) : Zura , Dr.Bubbles, Sir Gab, Abang Jin, Karina
