Are you old enough to remember such things as Sobe milk drinks, Cherry Coke with the cool black web pattern, the debut of Pokemon’s second generation, and watching 9/11 live from school televisions? If so, this playlist is for you.
I’m not even gonna run through my playlist rules. Dawg, I am tired. I work a full-time gig atop writing this shit — and boy howdy, is it a lot. I know a lot of folks are doing this in the uncomfortable hustle grindset borne of late stage capitalism. I’m not even a capitalist. I’m just fucking tired. And, maybe you can relate.
Anyway, instead of meticulously dropping information about every single song and band like usual, I genuinely just want you to imagine a scene. This is a very specific vibe — one that will never be captured again. Most of the folks who can taste it have passed that magical milestone of 30. At this point in our lives, nostalgia is the mind killer.
We get trapped in the good memories from our adolescence because we still believed in the future. There was optimism everywhere. New things were happening. Even though 9/11 fucked everything up, there was belief in recovery. It wasn’t until all the banks got bailed out in 2008 while the common person lost their homes and paid more for everything that we truly lost our gleam. Some folks looked to Obama to save us. They were fools.
ANYWAY, back to this vibe.
It’s Friday. It’s summer. You have a GameCube with Super Smash Brothers Melee. You have Xboxes linked together with motherfucking Halo in a room full of the boys. Jolt Cola flows like water through the streets. Your friend with the fast internet just bricked the family computer, but before he did, he scored a burnt CD with all your favorite songs. None of them are labeled correctly.
Sure, your older brother or cousin may have gotten a traumatic brain injury in Kandahar, but at least he got a Jeep out of it. Mountain Dew threatens new flavors. Warped Tour is about to peak. Things are simple. There is no cellphone in your pocket connected to every possible news site. You have no idea how bad shit is out there; no idea how bad it will one day get.
If you stay up too late Cartoon Network starts playing crazy shit that will warp your mind in the best ways. You’re becoming curious about weed and booze. You drown yourself in Curve or Bod fragrance spray to arouse the girls, but you really only arouse suspicion in them.
You’re too fat for Hollister, but it’s Friday night and you have your friend’s burnt CD that nuked his family’s computer, and you know all the words to all the songs you call by the wrong name and attribute to the wrong artist. There’s no day job. There’s no dead kids. There’s only a night full of thunderstorms and the freedom of summer’s increasing heat. You recently discovered 89.9 FM, WLCA, College Radio’s Best and will request half the songs you actually know the names of after the CD ends. Things are great.
There are still good days ahead. A better world is not only possible, but inevitable.
ENJOY!
