As the Decade Passes
March 3, 2009 at 5:20 am
On the edge of fragile memory lies nostalgia, the most elusive of memory’s protean forms and one beginning to receive critical attention. An admixture of sweetness and sorrow, it expresses a longing for a vanishing past often more imaginary than real in its idealized remembrance. Nostalgia exercised a powerful appeal in the Romantic sentiments of the nineteenth century, tied as it was to regret over the passing of ways of life eroded by economic and social change, a generalized popular enthusiasm for innovation, and rising expectations about what the future might hold. Nostalgia was the shadow side of progress. - somewhere on the net.
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” Songs From This Decade ”
01. Jolie Holland - Stubborn Beast
Springtime Can Kill You (2006, Anti)
02. Tom Waits - Dead and Lovely
Real Gone (2004, Anti)
03. Sara Tavares - Lisboa Kuya
Balancê (2006, Times Square Records)
04. Beth Gibbons - Romance
(2003, Sanctuary Records)
05. Nouvelle Vague - Ever Fallen in Love
Bande à Part (2006, Luaka Bop)
note: What is the best song of this decade? Moka has a big side project compiling songs of the decade, and as usual, I run through my files and lost in it. This are songs from the archive that I thought is memorable. in ballad/pop songs category. But what makes a song “song of the decade”? It couldn’t possible as simple as “I like it, and that’s what memorable”. What says you?
image: only alice
I wonder if the pictures are weirding people out… heh.
Joolie Holland
Tom waits “Hold on”
Lol was about to suggest Romance and Jolie Holland’s Old Fashioned Morphine on the elbows forum.
I think that the main factor to consider has to be how much the song defines the sound of a decade, how much it evokes it and being optimistic, how much sphere of influence has that specifical song or artist had over other artists. Course I always get biased on my own memories I share with a specifical song and forget about this.
I think that’s precisely it. There are going to be as many lists as the number of people who make them :) When I read any sort of a list or ranking, I usually accept and appreciate it as the subjective opinion of the person who made it.
Cheers!!
TC ^_^
I agree that It couldn’t possible as simple as “I like it, and that’s what memorable,” but many of the songs I best remember have provoked intense and immediate ‘positive’ feelings from their first playing. (Often, the feeling of ‘liking’ occurs within the first couple of bars or seconds of introduction. I become aware that I’m in for something very special — that I’ll be personally altered by the piece’s end.)
I’ve often compared the way I, a performer, relate to music with the way I, a performer, relate to people. Sometimes, time, effort, and understanding is required in order to come to love either; sometimes, even then, love is not achieved. (And by no means is the feeling of love a requirement of musical appreciation.) Occasionally, though, I hear something that immediately strikes a chord within me (pun most definitely intended) or meet someone to whom I feel an immediate aesthetic / emotional / intellectual resonance.
Assuming that what I’ve described can be applied to other persons — whether this sentiment stems from a gained sense of self-validation or attraction to novelty depends on the individual having the experience and the context in which the experience is had. Either way, a visceral response is involved; and this response is conducive to the formation of memory.
i’d consider a song’s relevance to current events, and its impact on people more important. aesthetic effect shouldn’t matter as much- otherwise it wouldn’t be specific to this decade.
Yeah, I really like Old-Fashioned Morphine. My wife’s a former professional singer and introduced me to Lisboa Kuya. Great listz among other great listzs.