The Decade In Music: Personal Reflections Part 1

Pre-2000
Being born in the middle of 1988 set me up perfectly for this sort of a Decade in Music sort of review. In the 80s I am not quite sure what sort of music tickled my fancy. I think at that point I was subconsciously being fed Bruce Cockburn since I know a large number of his songs but have no memory of ever listening to them until a few years ago. In the 90s I wasn't really that interested in music either. At this point I was mostly listening to the folk music of the Rankin Family (Cape Breton), Rawlings Cross (Newfoundland), and the Irish Descendants (Newfoundland). In particular Rawlings Cross version of McPherson's Lament is what made me want to learn the bagpipes, which I did play for a short time. And yes, I had that song mastered on the pipes.

Jr. Highschool 2000-mid 2003

Jr. High is when I first started listening to music. I would hook up this old discman to crappy computer speakers in my room while I played with Lego. It usually consisted of Christian rock, so bands like dc talk, Newsboys, and Delerious. I was also listening to quite a bit of Blue Rodeo. The random button was my best friend. But the first band that I really became obsessed over was Newfoundlands folk rockers Great Big Sea. In November of 2002 I went to my first "big" concert at the Metro Centre where they played along with Crush. Me and my friend Chris listened to them all of the time and also had our own hilarious versions of their songs. I was also listening to some Our Lady Peace at this point. Looking back I had a very limited range of music. Mostly Christian with a few other Canadian bands thrown in.

Perhaps the biggest moment of this time period came in February of 2002. The Superbowl halftime show featured Irish band U2. The site of Bono singing MLK and words from the Psalms with the names of victims of 9/11 scrolling was a very powerful moment. The climax of Where The Streets Have No Name when the names collapsed will forever be embedded in my mind. The power, emotion, and big sound that came from this guy in sunglasses started off the U2 journey for me. I had a burnt copy of All That You Can't Leave Behind as well as the Best of 1980s greatest hits album.