Offspring's Smash

That album has been deeply appealing lately, and I don't know why. I remember listening to it during the science fair in the 6th grade when I was "going out" with Elliott. I just can't get enough, lately, of "Smash", "Come Out and Play", "Kilboy Powerhead" and "It'll be a long time". I've always loved this album but the last few weeks I can't get enough post-punk 90's screaming. I guess I'm just in the mood or something.

I have a real 90's problem. Gosh, when this album came out I couldn't have been any older than nine. Barely sentient. I was still way into Nickelodeon. I can't explain the deep fondness for 90's music. Perhaps it's the onset of cynicism without politics. Angst without sappiness. Raw, unchecked, frustration and anger without anything saving it from it's own destruction. Kurt Cobain died. Killed himself. He was the martyr or... something. It was a symbol of the mood of the decade. It was a depressing time. All culminating into Woodstock 99. A horrifying example of what happens when a decade of youths burn themselves to pieces and take down the previous generation's symbols with it.

The horror, the horror. But, maybe all that has something to do with why I love the 90s. Tortured, barely contained madness. A lack of personal identity directly proceeding a time of invention and innovation. Seems like a metaphor for my life.

I love it because it hurts. Because it's pain, anger, madness distilled into chords and beats and sweat.

My dad said to me recently, "I basically don't like metal. You basically do." I always think also of what he's always told me, "You can't like any music until you figure out how to dance to it." I realized how true it is. I've always known how to dance to metal, and grunge. Spasms of frustrated madness. Wrenching, tearing, beating. Feel the beat in your gut and burst out in ecstatic waves of everything you've ever hated and loved all at once. It's a dance I've always known. A dance I've always done. He's right. I basically love this, and always will. And I fully believe it's because my body innately knows how to move to it.