Soundtrack To My Life

I feel like an old man lately, going to sleep early, waking up early, seeing high school kids wherever I go. And it doesn't help that when I listen to the radio these days, I hear stuff like "Killer B Flashbacks" or "Q101 Nineties Nooner" and it's all the stuff I used to listen to.

When I was a little kid, I thought my mom and dad were old cause they listened to stuff like Carpenters, Crystal Gale, Bee Gees, and J Lo. But now, kids probably think I'm old for liking Mariah Carey (pre-ho days), Stone Temple Pilots (pre-sucky days), and Boyz II Men (when they were actually Boyz).

Oh well, since I like to reminisce, why not make a list of songs that remind me of certain times in my life. These weren't all necessarily released in the exact time I list them in, they're just the songs I was listening to at the time. They're not all songs that I like either, but most of them are.

*The Year I Lived In Taiwan - Freshman in HS*

Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do
4PM - Sukyaki
All 4 One - I Swear
Boyz II Men - I'll Make Love To You
Mariah Carey - Without You, Anytime You Need A Friend

I think I woke up to Sheryl Crow on my clock radio at least half the days I was living in Taiwan. There's one English radio station that you can hear there (ICRT) and they always played like the top 5 hits on the pop chart over and over. So if it wasn't Sheryl Crow, it was Sukyaki. Back then I didn't really know anything about alternative music or hip hop stuff.

*Sophomore Year of HS*

Seal - Kiss From A Rose
Blues Traveler - Runaround
Ace of Base - The Sign, Don't Turn Around, All that She Wants
TLC - Waterfalls
U2 - Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me
Real McCoy - Come And Get Your Love, Another Night, Runaway
Coolio - Gangsta's Paradise

This was when I got my own walkman (Sony WM-470, I saved up like 30 bucks for it which is a lot of money), and I started buying tapes. Either me or my sister own most of these tapes, but I don't know where they are anymore. Anyways, back at that time, we were just moving back from Taiwan so we had to stay with a friend's family for a few months. Even though they were very cool for letting us live there, it was one of the toughest times for me. I still kind of hung out with my old friends, but after a year out of the country, it wasn't the same.

Kind of sad, but my only close friend was my walkman. I would just listen to it all day whenever I could, and it was like an escape from the outside world. Maybe that is why music means so much to me today, cause it's all I had for a while.

*Junior Year of HS*

Stone Temple Pilots - Interstate Love Song, Big Empty, Lady Picture Show, Trippin on a Hole in a Paper Heart
Smashing Pumpkins - 1979, Bullet With Butterfly Wings, Today, Tonight Tonight, Thirty-three
Green Day - Brain Stew, Basket Case
311 - Down
No Doubt - Happy Now?, Don't Speak, Just A Girl

The first CD I ever bought was Purple by STP. I still listen to it all the time, it's one of my favorite albums ever. Anyways, if you can't tell by the list, I pretty much had Q101 on all the time. I remember coming home from school every day, watching TV, then doing my homework to the Top 5 at 5.

Another thing that sticks in my mind from back then is when I was at the arcade at Yorktown, they were showing the video for "Don't Speak". For some reason, I was enthralled with the video, even if it was just pretty much the band playing in the garage. And even though I distinctly remember not thinking Gwen Stefani was hot in any way. Weird, but when I watch the video now, I think it is one of Gwen's best looking moments.

*Senior Year of HS*

Puff Daddy - I'll Be Missing You, Can't Nobody Hold Me Down, All About the Benjamins, Mo' Money Mo' Problems, Senorita
Backstreet Boys - Quit Playing Games, As Long As You Love Me
Allure f. 112 - All Cried Out
Babyface - Everytime I Close My Eyes
Usher - U Make Me Wanna, Nice & Slow
Sarah MacLachlan - I Will Remember You
Green Day - Time Of Your Life
Freak Nasty - Da Dip

I started listening to less Q101 and more B96 starting around the summer before senior year. Half of these songs stick out in my head because of all the stuff that goes on when you're about to graduate, like the Senior Video and Prom. I hated that Green Day song with a passion.

Also, I had no idea who the Backstreet Boys were, but when I finally saw one of their videos, it was one of the more shocking moments in my life. I don't know why, it's not like I expected them to look a certain way. But I could've done without seeing the Boys soaking in the rain.

*Freshman Year College*

N Sync - God Must've Spent A Little More Time, I Drive Myself Crazy
Paperboy - Ditty
Notorious B.I.G. & Bone - Notorious Thugs
Turbo - December, Goodbye Yesterday
Jinusean - Celebrate, Marl Hae Cho, How Deep Is Your Love
DJ Doc - Biguk Biguk, Docdance'
H.O.T. - We Are The Future, Candy
Kai - Without You
Fin.K.L - Blue Rain
Bone Thugs & Harmony - Crossroads, Mo Murda, 1st of Tha Month
DMX - Ruff Ryder's Anthem, How's It Goin' Down
Warren G - Regulate
Natalie Imbruglia - Torn
Britney Spears - Baby One More Time, Sometimes
Backstreet Boys - I Want It That Way
Big Pun - Still Not A Playa
Master P - Make 'Em Say UHHHH
Boyz II Men - Human II

One of the first things me and Andy did when we moved into our dorm room at FAR was to download mp3s onto my comp. I don't know why I'm admitting this, but our first mp3 ever was "God Must've Spent A Little More Time...", back before Napster or Kazaa. We had to use AOL chatrooms, and eventually Scour.net to find songs. For a couple weeks, I think that was the only song we had, which is kind of flaming now that I think about it.

There's so many memories of this year and the music that goes along with it, this was probably one of the most musically-rich times of my life. The best moment of the year was the following story: Me Chras and Anuj up late playing Goldeneye or something one night at IT, and after we were done we were just watching MTV and one of those "Spanking New Video" or "Buzzworthy Artist" things came on. The video was none other than "Baby One More Time," little did we know how big that would explode.

For about half the video, the 3 of us were just silently watching, thinking like "what the hell is this?". Because there really wasn't much teeny pop music at the time at all and we were used to all hip-hop or alternative kinds of videos. Then near the end of the video (about when she's in the pink top doing cartwheels, then in the yellow with the basketball), Anuj was like "she's hot." Me and Chras agreed, and we went online to look up more information on who this Britney Spears girl was.

Believe it or not, there was ONE site returned from the search engine (remember Altavista?), and I think it was made by one of her relatives or something. Today, if you search for Britney Spears on Google, you probably have to sort through a sea of fake-celebrity porn sites just to find one that's actually on Britney.

Anyways, that was our first encounter with Miss Spears and I have been all about Britney Spears ever since. Except now, I hear she is seeing Fred Durst. Not that I liked Justin, but Fred Durst, I'm sorry, that's just freaking poor. If it's true, I must say I have lost a lot of respect (of whatever's left) for Britney.

Also, I am NOT Korean. Me, Andy, and Will were all Chinese, but we had a ton of Korean influences around and they got us listening to all the K-pop stuff that year. We even set my computer wallpaper to a picture of Hyori from Fin.K.L. And H.O.T.'s "Candy" is one song that I think every single Asian person our age knows, whether they are Korean or not.

*Sophomore Year of College*

Britney Spears - You Drive Me Crazy, From The Bottom Of My Broken Heart
Backstreet Boys - Larger Than Life, All I Have To Give, Show Me The Meaning, The One
Limp Bizkit - Nookie
Mo Thugs - Ghetto Cowboy
2Pac - (everything)
Rage Against The Machine - Guerilla Radio, Bulls On Parade
311 - Come Original
Smashing Pumpkins - (everything, but especially Machina songs)
Red Hot Chili Peppers - Around the World, Otherside
Foo Fighters - Learn to Fly, Next Year
Yuki Hsu & Yoo Seung Jun - Deng Bu Ji
Mariah Carey & Brian McKnight - Whenever You Call
TLC - No Scrubs, Unpretty, Silly Ho

Ah... the thing I remember most from this year was the Craft & TRL tradition that me and P carried on almost every day. After class we played Starcraft almost every day, and in the background I always had MTV on. So I associate a lot of the Britney and Backstreet songs with this year. That was the life, playing Starcraft and listening to music.

Then there were the MarioKart battles in my room when we (all male college students) would be belting out the high notes of "Whenever You Call" at the top of our lungs. Good times.

Another thing to note was the concerts we went to - 311, Foo Fighters/Chili Peppers, and Pumpkins (actually that was the next fall for me). Not to mention Britney in the summer at Wisconsin. I think I already wrote about these concerts before so I won't write any more here.

And these were the days when I kept track of what songs were on my Rio on my .plan (remember those, the precursor to blogs). I was just going through some of those that I saved and I forgot how huge of a song "You Drive Me Crazy" was. That's still my favorite Britney Spears song and video of all time.

*Since Then*

I guess junior year of college and beyond is still too recent to really reminisce about, so I'll cut this list off there. Man, that was a lot of writing and thinking. Hopefully one day I'll look back on this blog and be glad that I wrote all of this down.