The Apathetic Angst of the 90's

We were a generation that embodied listless apathy, few if any taking up a cause. We had one foot in analog and the other in digital not knowing exactly where we belonged. It was the last year of the millennium, 1999. I was 16, a sophomore and unlike all my peers, I didn’t listen to modern music. I was convinced I was born in the wrong decade. Up until this point, modern music did not exist to me. Not due to any pretentious music snobbery, but because it was all a cacophony of sound that I could never appreciate. Music died for me the day The Beatles broke up, over a decade before I was even conceived. My angst at the time was encapsulated by “I’m a Loser” because what 90’s teen is complete without their hand in an L shape over their forehead?

The Beatles - I'm a Loser

I would have very likely spent my life only listening to The Beatles had I not started dating my first boyfriend. He was a good friend, artistic and the only person who could understand my love of The Beatles. In a time before texting and cellphones, he would call my house phone and we would speak to each other using Beatles song titles and lyrics until one of us ran out of things to reply thus losing the game. We hung out and listened to Beatles records on my dad’s record player and he would comment on the pleasant sound the needle made as it glided over the grooves. Saying, “This is how music should be listened to.”

The Beatles - Chains

The thing about high school relationships in particular, is that everyone is still growing and learning how to relate to those around them. So, it is unsurprising that this foray into romance only lasted a month. It however left a deep mark that forever changed my taste in music. Due to how interweaved The Beatles were in our short-lived romance, I found myself unable to listen to them. The Beatles, the sound of the phone ringing and the doorbell chime would all send me into trembling anxiety attacks.

But worse of all, I was left devoid of music.

The idea that I had to listen to a plethora of songs I didn’t like to find one I did like and then have to wait till it was played again felt absurd. So I gave up on tuning through radio stations and settled on classical music. It was the only music I could enjoy. What eventually saved me was the launch of Napster a few months after the breakup. Napster changed everything. I could listen to an array of artists easily and without commitment.

When I started my junior year, I started asking my classmates for artist recommendations. What could epitomize teenage angst more than Smashing Pumpkins' album Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness? Slowly, I started to listen to a wider variety of music. From the grunge laden tracks of Nirvana to the pop punk of Green Day. All the little bits and pieces and loose ends that were tossed in the bucket genre of alternative music. The discordant noise melted away and became music.

The Smashing Pumpkins - 1979

And before I knew it, these songs became part of the soundtrack to rest of my high school career.

The Beatles might have taught me that, “All You Need is Love” and it wasn't until I met my husband 2 years later that I was able to listen to them again. But it was 90’s Alternative that taught me that the love we give and receive is often warped and tinged in jagged wounded melancholy.