23 years ago today a little-known band released whatโs still their best album and changed my life. I was 11, I started to hear the likes of โWhy does it always rain on me?โ and โDriftwoodโ on the radio and I was hooked.
There was no YouTube in those days, so when they appeared on the airwaves it was a real treat for someone without a CD or tape player. Their songs seemed to speak to me and lift me up, even though so many of their detractors called them โnegativeโ or โdepressing.โ For me, they seemed to chime with the wonder I had for the world and all the things I wanted to do in life when Iโd grow up.
Fast forward 7 months and 1 day and itโs Christmas โ99. Iโve opened all those big boxes and weird shaped presents we all get excited about, and thereโs only a couple left under the tree. I pick it up, know itโs a CD for my recently acquired player, and I dare to get excited. Will it beโฆI think it might beโฆhang onโฆit really has come with a little thanks to Santa and his elves!
I hold the artwork in my hands, read the booklet and cannot wait to get upstairs and play it. Thereโs tracks on there that havenโt made it onto the airwaves before so to say Iโm excited would be an understatement.
23 years later Iโve still got that album and Iโm listening to it (on Amazon Music lol) as I write this. When I think where the last 23 years have gone, I know they were spent with the soundtrack to my life playing in the background.
Hereโs to many more happy yearsโฆ
