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Music memory lane: Delays expected

My friends are familiar with what kind of books I like since I yak about it often enough, but they're not entirely sure what kind of music I listen to. I wouldn't know how to answer that myself because my tastes have changed so much in the past few years and I listen to whatever grabs me.

In my schooldays, I listened to whatever was in vogue, or whatever my elder siblings were crazy about. People were going ape-shit over New Kids On The Block when I was 11, and I picked Jon as my favourite NKOTB member because everyone insisted that you must have a favourite, even when I did not fancy any of them at all. One of my earliest memories of peer pressure. I could do the dance moves though, I learned it with my big sister, Steamed Chicken.

Then there was Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, Madonna, Fleetwood Mac, Roxette, Johnny Hates Jazz, A-ha - Steamed Chicken was infatuated with Morten Harkett - Bros, Rick Astley, Milli Vanilli. I bought my first album with my sister's help. It was Kylie.

When my brother became more influential in my music selection, the grunge phase was in and I became familiar with Pearl Jam, Alice In Chains, Mudhoney, Cypress Hill, Sonic Youth, Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots. I even had the baggy shorts and my one flannel shirt to complete the look. I drew the line at Doc Martens though: too expensive and I never wore shoes outside of school. Even the girly-girls were into grunge, even if they didn't dress like it and anyone who didn't know about it was soooo uncool. Like the time me and the girls in my tuition class laughed a boy right out of the room because he had no idea who Nirvana was. What planet was he on, we thought. He was from Methodist Boys School and unfortunately from then on, I thought all boys from Methodist were total geeks. I haven't met anyone else from there to disprove me of that first impression.

Then at eighteen, I left home and got all melancholy and holed up in my bedroom listening to dark or miserable music like Radiohead and Tori Amos. At some point, melancholy turned into an unexplainable anger and frustration and I got into Metallica's entire music collection to date, Deftones, Tool, Slipknot. I bought a guitar because I wanted to goreng like my music heroes and started buying Classic Rock magazines that always had free CDs attached to it, so I was introduced to Led Zeppelin, Yngwie Malmsteen, Deep Purple in its various incarnations, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Sabbath.

I could only be angry for so long before my hormones leveled out and I chucked out a lot of those free CDs, got bored of music for awhile and started spending my money on books again. Eventually I got sucked into the ridiculously naff dance music that kept making the charts in the UK, though I never bought the originals and merely recorded songs off the radio using my friend's MD player. A bit labour intensive but very similar to the days when my sister and I would stand by the radio with our finger on the record button listening to Rick Dee's American Top 40 or Casey Kassem.

Today, like I said earlier, I listen to whatever grabs me, be it rock, pop, dance, classical or whatever new genre is out now. Though I still find R&B extremely annoying for some reason.

I wouldn't label myself as a big music fan - my free time, free space and available money is mainly spent on books and magazines, but I appreciate music for what it is, and how a song can alter your mood or a refrain can take you on a trip down memory lane. I still depend on my siblings to recommend stuff to me though, and even my current favourite band was introduced to me by my sister.

I knew I could not hide my infatuation for Delays for long (and no, it's not The Delays). It was inevitable that I started posting their videos on my blog and wax lyrical over their melodies, harmonies, driving bass, angelic yet throaty voice bla bla bla. Maybe I like them because they combine in one band the muscial psyche that I am attracted towards: upbeat songs you could dance to, tinged with a hint of melancholy and bruised feelings, layered with obscure lyrics and sharp intellect. They have no hang ups about being pop or being indie or rock and are unafraid to be corny if the song demands it.Oh, yeah and they write banging tunes too.

I don't think they are ever going to be considered cool because they don't have an agenda to push or fit into a particular music scene or are pushy and attention-seeking, which is a shame, because it seems you need to be cool nowadays to be big. But as long as they keep true to themselves and continue to write what they write because they like it and not because it's cool and in, then I'll be happy to wait and listen and ogle and dream for the time when they are big enough to come to Malaysia.

In the meantime, here's Delays playing Valentine at the Isle of Wight festival in 2006. Just ignore the two blokes in the straw hats at the beginning.




Here's them again at the V festival playing their single Lost In A Melody, which never made it into an album.




And to finish up, here's a more traditional acoustic-rock number that's stripped down and haunting, minus any beeps.

Comments

Anonymous said…
How come 'Nsync's not mentioned anywhere? :p
Kere said…
Now, now, that would be name-dropping.

Hee.

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