My Epoch of Angst

At the tender age of 11, I developed an intense and naive crush on the guy who sat next to me in middle school. With long hair that flopped in front of his blue eyes, and a great sense of humour, I fell hard and was infatuated by my new love and my new, tingly feelings that stirred inside me.

Excitingly, my crush was in a band. A grunge band. With newfound curiosity, I plunged headfirst into this new to me sub genre of rock.

What I would discover down this rabbit hole, blew me away. I couldn’t get over the sounds and lyrics of grunge. They made my soul ache. I was in Heaven. I was in a state of bliss. I was in.....Nirvana.

Do you remember when you first heard Nirvana’s seminal song, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’, off their album Nevermind? The backstory to the title and theme of this unforgettable song is interesting. Kurt was inspired after reading graffiti that had been written on the wall of his hotel room, by Kathleen Hanna of the band Bikini Kill. She wrote, ‘Kurt smells like teen spirit’, alluding to the popular deodorant for young women during the 90s, called Teen Spirit. Kurt, however, was not aware of this brand and interpreted her words to be a revolutionary cry, and went on to name this hit song after it.

‘And I forget just why I taste

Oh yeah, I guess it makes me smile

I found it hard, was hard to find

Oh well, whatever, never mind....’

Watching Kurt Cobain perform gives me chills to this day. He had such a powerful anger and his lyrics were just raw and bleeding. His death was such a tragedy and truly affected the music industry and the vast amount of Nirvana fans, myself included.

I became obsessed with grunge music. Back in the heyday of MuchMusic, Canada’s answer to America’s MTV, I remember sitting in front of the family tv, watching music videos, completely enthralled. I had a blank video cassette in the VHS player that was always ready to record a favourite music video of mine that aired. I would spend my Saturday mornings glued to the tv, watching and rewatching these favourite music videos of mine.

Love it or hate her, you can’t deny the influence of Courtney Love on the 90s grunge scene, especially as a female rocker. Do you remember her classic song ‘Violet’, off her band Hole’s 1994 album Live through this? It gets in your head and stays.

‘And the sky was made of amethyst

And all the stars were just like little fish

You should learn when to go


You should learn how to say "no"’

Interestingly, Courtney Love wrote this song about her former relationship with Billy Corgan of The Smashing Pumpkins, another influence on me during my grunge years.

‘Bullet with Butterfly Wings’ by the above mentioned Pumpkins, was so filled with angst that it made you want to rage. But as Billy reminds us,

‘despite all my rage, I am still just a rat in a cage’.

The song and music video are staggering, and gosh, did it speak to my tween-age heart! ‘

‘And what do you want?


I wanna change


What do you got


When you feel the same?’

Armed with my new taste in music and my newfound angst at the world, I went as grunge as I could at the tender age of 11.

Meaning I wore flannel shirts and baggy jeans to school, every single day!

Sadly for me at the time, nothing ever became of my grade 6 crush. However, he was the first true musical influence in my life and opened my eyes to grunge.

The year 1995 continued on and I was next greatly influenced by the angry tones and piercing vocals of Alanis Morissette’s classic song about an ex boyfriend, in ‘You oughta know’ off her album Jagged little pill.

Alanis growls at us,

‘And I'm here, to remind you

Of the mess you left when you went away

It's not fair, to deny me

Of the cross I bear that you gave to me

You, you, you oughta know!’

Doesn’t this just give you shivers? Can’t we all just relate a little bit to her indignation and rage about being dumped?

I bought Alanis’ album Jagged Little Pill on cassette. Same with my grunge favourites, Nirvana, Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins. The year 1995, however, brought with it something new and shiny. After begging my parents for a CD player, I finally received one as a much treasured gift. The next day, I went running to my local record store in Toronto, the Canadian, historically popular store, ‘Sam the record man’.

Armed with my saved allowance, I bought my first CD. If I were to tease you with the hint ‘Don’t Speak’, would that get your brain working? No doubt, my first CD was none other than No Doubt’s Tragic Kingdom.

Gwen Stefani was everything I wanted to be. Strong, talented, gorgeous, sporting her signature, eye catching bleached blonde hair and amazing style, she was and is a female icon in the music industry. Interestingly, Gwen rejected the aggressiveness of the female grunge rockers at the time, preferring to model herself after Blondie’s Debbie Harry, embodying both power and sex appeal.

Ah, memories of my very first live concert. Do you remember yours? Still at the tender age of 11, I became obsessed with Green Day and their album Dookie. I had a massive crush on the lead singer, Billy Joe Armstrong. When the band did their Dookie tour, I begged my parents for tickets and permission to go. My parents, bless their hearts, always wanted me to be able to explore and enjoy new experiences, as long as I was safe. They allowed me to go, much to my excitement, with my cool, much idolized, older cousin!

Dookie is still probably the album I know the lyrics to the best. They were so influential on me back in the day and I maintain my lust for Billie Joe still.

For the next couple years, I happily and angrily listened to grunge and rock. Until a song landed near the end of 1998 that exploded in popularity and gave rise to a new teen pop star. I’m talking about, of course, none other than Britney Spears.

Britney spoke to the teenage soul, often tortured by love and riddled with heartbreak. Her groundbreaking song, ‘Hit me baby one more time’, is a catchy tune that deals with a girl’s feelings after a break up with her boyfriend. This pop song offered comfort and inspiration to vulnerable teenagers across the world, myself included, after its release.

Do you remember my previously mentioned crush on Green Day’s lead singer Billie Joe? In 1999, when I was an awkward high schooler in grade 10, I fell hard, so hard, for a bleached blonde music God.

That was the year that the Red Hot Chili Peppers released their album Californication. I couldn’t get enough of their hit song ‘Scar Tissue’, nor could I get enough of their lead singer, Anthony Kiedis! Known for his long hair and for whipping it around in true rocker style on stage, this was the year that Anthony decided to chop it off and bleach it blonde.

I was completely in love with him and fantasized about meeting him and marrying him. I listened to Californication on repeat that year and still can croon along to ‘Scar Tissue’ even to this day.

Time marched along and my years in high school passed by, with the normal ups and downs of those precious teenage years. I still gravitated towards heavier music that spoke to the torments of my heart during those influential yet difficult years.

The year 2000 rolled along and we all survived Y2K. This year saw the release of the highly influential and much played on-air rock group, Linkin Park. They released their album Hybrid Theory and the lead singer, Chester Bennington, spoke to me with his pain and suffering. Chester was ultimately who influenced me to pierce my lip in high school in a common act of rebellion and a statement about myself (a piercing that I still have and love in my thirties!). I even named one of my precious house rabbits Chester, in honour of my new favourite rocker.

‘Crawling’’s melody is haunting on its own and Chester’s lyrics rip apart your fragile soul.

‘Crawling in my skin

These wounds, they will not heal

Fear is how I fall

Confusing what is real’

As you can probably see, my musical taste up until this point in my life largely revolved around rock and it’s various sub genres with the exception of Britney.

I would be amiss, however, if I didn’t end my story with the song that completely opened my eyes to an unexpected genre of music. Again, motivated by a high school crush, when I was 17 years old, my crush played in his car while we were cruising around, a song that came from the world of underground hip hop.

Just like that, my tastes went spinning in a new direction. My ears and my soul couldn’t get enough of this new to me type of music. The beat and the lyrical flow hypnotized me. The rhythm and the rhyming of the MC entranced me.

No matter the years that have passed since I first heard this song, I still love it. This rap duo, entitled Atmosphere, hail from Minneapolis, Minnesota and are composed of the MC, Slug, and the DJ, Ant. Not surprisingly, I developed a massive crush (are you noticing a trend?) on Slug because of his lyrics and the very sound of his voice rapping.

I have since been lucky enough to see Atmosphere perform at various locations in Ontario and Quebec. I have followed their career for all these years and they are my comfort music, the music I reach to for solace, distraction, post break-up, or to listen to while doing mundane household chores. I was fortunate to see Atmosphere perform live right before the entire world shut down as a result of COVID in early 2020.

Atmosphere debuted their album Lucy Ford in 2001. The first song I ever heard from this artist and this foreign genre of music was entitled ‘The woman with the tattooed hands.’ Haunting in every aspect, I fell in love with Atmosphere and underground hip hop and we became life long lovers.

Slug achingly explains to us, while he recounts meeting the woman with the tattooed hands, that;

‘There's good and evil in each individual fire

Identifies needs and feeds our desire

As long as we keep our spirit inspired

She can bite her bottom lip all she wants’.

And so, these are the songs that heavily influenced me as a tween and teenager. These are the songs I can still sing to this day, the songs of my heart. Indeed, these songs and their lyrics have got me through many a troubled time in my life.

What is it about music that speaks to the listener so strongly? Music sings to us what we dare not whisper aloud. It comforts us and reassures us we are not alone. It can echo our feelings of love and lust, of angst and anger, of isolation and pain, and remind us of our inner strength. It puts to words our deepest emotions, those that we are unable to express. Music is also a time capsule that can transport us to a different era and time of our life. It plays heavily on those bittersweet memories and our feelings of nostalgia. The power of music as a cultural practice and means of communication cannot be underestimated. As Friedrich Nietzsche reminds us so beautifully, ‘Without music, life would be a mistake.’