Remembrance of Fop Music Past

It's my last year of college and I'm finding that, at a time when I desperately need to be looking at my future, my surroundings are making me nostalgic for the past. More than ever I'm realizing how much my music reminds me of places and people of my past. It's like, I was sitting in a coffee shop and the barista was playing Rusted Root on the stereo. (Which, I swear, only in Ann Arbor.) Rusted Root is so undeniably autumn-of-my-junior-year-of-high-school that I am unable to separate the two. Neither realities exist without each other. If Rusted Root did not exist, my memories of that high school semester would be completely altered. So you can see why I get so nostalgic about these things. And this is why I'm unable to get work done in coffee shops.

My college years are well typified by certain artists. Royksopp and Dandy Warhols are freshman year. Depeche Mode and Zero 7 are sophomore year. Metric and Utah Saints are junior year, with Hooverphonic getting tagged in during the sad times. The summers in between each year are embodied by Franz Ferdinand ('04), Fischerspooner ('05) and Sia ('06). Going even further, Annie is my 20th birthday. Esthero is my 18th birthday. Beck is working at the Italian cafe. Salt-N-Pepa is driving around York. The Cranberries is driving around Kalamazoo with my sister; Etta James with my mom. Rufus Wainwright's Poses is high school musical practice. Nelly Furtado is my old bedroom. Faithless is visiting Michigan with Sasha. Morcheeba is moving across campus for the first time. Nightmares on Wax is snowy Ann Arbor. Arcade Fire is cloudy New York. Cirrus is mountainous Pennsylvania. And so on and on.

I suppose the point is, the future is making me way tense and I don't want to think about it. Maybe I can reconcile my old music and memories with my anxieties for what's to come. Until I figure everything out, I'll just think about that time I drank too much wine in my old room while listening to The Faint.