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Tag: nostalgia

The Bottom of the Top #26

2022-06-272022-06-27 John Winkelman

Ah, the space between the end of Spring and the first major event of Summer, Independence Day. At this point in the year the post-school routine has been established and the summer job (or just the job, post-college) is in full swing.

1977: Rod Stewart, “The Killing of Georgie (parts 1 and 2”)

Wow. I am certain I had not heard this song before putting this post together. And certainly not in the summer between second and third grade. It’s beautiful, and sad, and Stewart sings it perfectly.

1982: J. Geils Band, “Angel in Blue”

I have no specific memory of hearing “Angel in Blue”, but I feel a general nostalgia associated with the song, which brings back memories of possibly summer camp, such as it was back in the early 1980s. “Angel in Blue” was overshadowed by the J. Geils Band’s bigger hits like “Freeze Frame” and “Centerfold,” but it is just as good as the other songs, and Peter Wolf sells it beautifully.

1987: Fleetwood Mac, “Seven Wonders”

Yeah, this was the song of the sustained enervation of being done with the familiar and on the cusp of the great unfamiliar of college. Hanging out with the one or two remaining high school friends and wondering how I would maintain the unrequited crushes on the girls who remained in my hometown when I left for college. What an odd (in hindsight) thing to worry about! How can I ineffectually lust after someone who is a hundred miles away! Also, I could listen to Stevie Nicks sing all day.

1992: Guns N’ Roses, “November Rain”

I remember the huge splash this song (and the associated album) made when it hit. I have never liked Guns N’ Roses, and I have never appreciated Axl Rose (Slash is the true heart and soul of GN’R), so listening to “November Rain” made me want to eject the CD from the CD player and pop in the most recent release from They Might Be Giants, or whatever.

1997: Bruce Springsteen, “Secret Garden”

I might have heard this one, at the bookstore when the soundtrack to Jerry Maguire was receiving some play. I have no specific memory (and also no associated memories) of this specific song, but I loves me some Bruce Springsteen so I more than likely have heard it at some point. According to the internets, “Secret Garden” was not one of Springsteen’s most popular songs, which is unfortunate, as it is quite lovely.

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The Bottom of the Top #25

2022-06-202022-06-19 John Winkelman

With school finally in the rearview mirror, summer has officially kicked off in its various incarnations across the 25 years represented here.

1977: 10cc, “People in Love”

I do not recall ever having heard “People in Love” before adding it to this list. It is lovely, if not really a standout. “People in Love” peaked at #40 on the Billboard Hot 100, so this was probably it’s only week in the limelight. “People in Love” sounds very late-70s and makes me think of vans lined with shag carpet.

1982: Van Halen, “Dancing in the Street”

Given the realities of access to music in the early 1980s and in rural south-central Michigan it is likely that I heard (or became aware of) this version of Dancing in the Street before any of the older ones, or indeed the original. It is fun, if light, and it peaked at #38. I think it is indicative of Diver Down as a whole, in that is is not great, but it is awesome! Reminds me of bus rides to and from middle school with overly aggressive high school students using shoulder-punches to imprint us with a proper appreciation of the musical stylings of Eddie Van Halen.

1987: Company B, “Fascinated”

I wasn’t sure if I had heard this song before until the refrain, and then I was all “Oh yeah!” Though I had heard the song (and the video also seemed familiar) I don’t remember ever hearing of Company B qua Company B. I dig it. It’s fun, and probably got quite a bit of play on MTV, back in the day. As a point of interest, the Wikipedia article on Freestyle music has examples of some really great songs.

1992: Mariah Carey, “Make it Happen”

The early nineties are something of a dead zone in my music history, apparently. I have heard a lot of Mariah Carey, but I think the first time I heard this song was while putting together this post. Then again it was not one of her more popular songs and it came from one of her less popular albums, which means according to the rules of capitalism it was shuffled off to the side. But yeah, Carey has an amazing voice, and since coming across “Make it Happen” I have listened to it several times.

1997: Babyface, “Every Time I Close My Eyes”

I like this one. I don’t remember it, but I don’t see how I could have NOT heard it at some point, particularly with backing vocals by Mariah Carey (!) and Kenny G. on sax. I mean, that’s a whole lotta talent in one place. The summer when this charted, I was listening mostly to Tom Waits and Renaissance Fair music, so I amost certainly would have heard this one on MTV or at work.

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The Bottom of the Top #24

2022-06-132022-06-09 John Winkelman

 

1977: The Carpenters, “All You Get From Love is a Love Song”

Flashes of nostalgia or deja vu of traveling to the Kalamazoo area with Dad to visit his sister at her house on a small lake where we noodled around in his canoe while fishing for bluegills and whatever else would bite. Evenings catching fireflies and cooking hotdogs on a grill, and hanging out in a VERY seventies house with shag carpet, wood panelling, overstuffed couches and leather recliners and the scent of cigarette and pipe smoke and the remnants of the fire in the fireplace.

1982: Rainbow, “Stone Cold”

Definitely heard this one right when it came out. And probably saw it on MTV as well. “Stone Cold” brought up memories of that particular feeling of standing in the milking parlor while the cows grumble and chew and shit while we cleaned their udders and teats and hooked up the milking apparatus. The MTV would have happened when we flew down to Louisiana to visit Dad, usually around the middle of July. Louisiana in July doesn’t sound so inviting now.

1987: Jody Watley, “Looking For a New Love”

1992: Kathy Troccoli, “Everything Changes”

1997: Michael Bolton, “Go the Distance”

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The Bottom of the Top #23

2022-06-062022-06-07 John Winkelman

Ah, the first week of June, and also the week which roughly coincides with my birthday, and the first week of summer break, and the first “official” week of summer, even though we still have to endure about two more weeks of spring.

1977: Alice Cooper, “You and Me”

I loves me some Alice Cooper, and I probably heard this song right about when it came out. When I played the video I had a burst of deja vu of being a young kid, probably hearing the song come from the radio of a passing car as I read a book on the porch, or something. As a bonus, here is Cooper singing the song with a Muppet.

1982: Huey Lewis and the News, “Hope You Love Me Like You Say You Do”

This was playing when I was (probably) milking cows on the morning of my thirteenth birthday. The album which contained this song, Picture This, is good and entertaining, but didn’t make a splash like Sports and Fore! a few years later. Still, the song is fun and I likely heard it a lot more once I left for college and had access to e.g. culture and/or MTV.

1987: Gloria Estefan and Miami Sound Machine, “Rhythm is Gonna Get You”

Ah, my eighteenth birthday. A week after the end of school I hosted a graduation/pool party, which was probably the last fun thing I did before leaving for college in late August.  “Rhythm is Gonna Get You” (from Let it Loose) was certainly playing at the time, as was “Conga” from her earlier album Primitive Love. We played “Conga” in the marching and pep bands in high school, and probably college as well. So yeah, whenever I hear Estefan (and Miami Sound Machine) I get All The Nostalgias for being a geeky kid with a trombone playing pop music covers.

1992: Das EFX, “They Want EFX”

I don’t know when or where I heard “They Want EFX” the first time, but it was probably at a time when I didn’t “get” it. 1992 was all frats and rednecks and working third shift in a garment factory in West Michigan. So, not a lot of exposure to hip hop, and definitely not in an environment where it was appreciated. “They Want EFX” is brilliant, and I’ve listened to it about half a dozen times in the past three days.

1997: Various Artists, “ESPN Presents the Jock Jam”

Umm…yeah, I might have heard this in a bar somewhere.

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The Bottom of the Top #22

2022-05-302022-05-30 John Winkelman

Memorial Day weekend never really meant much to me, as it was (in grade school) all about the parade through town and playing patriotic songs at the VFW and waiting for the National Guard howitzer to go boom, while in the back of my head I was simultaneously anticipating and dreading the school year being over. On the one hand, no more school for three month. On the other hand, three months of being even more isolated than usual on the farm. And once I was out of school and in the work force, during the years represented here I worked in restaurants or retail, so Memorial Day weekend was busier than usual, and full of entitled consumers taking out their frustrations on underpaid workers. As it always is.

1977: Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, “Spirits in the Night”

This is a deeply groovy song, but I don’t remember when I first heard it. Probably sometime in junior high, because on first playing it while writing this post I had a definite hit of deja vu which put me in mind of sitting sullenly on a school bus buried under music instruments, athletic equipment, and homework. I mostly know Manfred Mann etc. from “Blinded by the Light” and “Quinn the Eskimo.” So this is another instance of the temporal shear made possible by and exacerbated by, oldies stations.

1982: Karla Bonoff, “Personally”

I might have heard “Personally” back when it was released. It has that early-eighties smooth vibe like the seventies have not quite been transcended, and were it released a few years earlier it would have fit right in. This is a pretty song, and Bonoff is a wonderful singer.

1987: T’Pau, “Heart and Soul”

This one made something of a splash when it was released, and I remember hearing it on the radio on my way to and from one of the worst jobs I have ever had in my life – working the belt at the Eaton Rapids pickle factory. Having fun music to listen to made things slightly less unbearable. To be fair, I only occasionally listened to the radio (Q106!); mostly I had David Bowie cassettes (Tonight, Never Let Me Down) on heavy rotation in the after-market tape deck in my 1977 Cutlass Supreme. Like every other song of the summer of 1987, this marked me treading water, counting the seconds until I left for college and put Springport permanently in my rearview mirror.

1992: Atlantic Starr, “Masterpiece”

I have probably heard “Masterpiece” more times at weddings than on the radio or on MTV, though it was on heavy rotation back in 1992. It doesn’t pull at any nostalgic threads, so I will say this is just one of those ubiquitous songs which seems to have always been around.

1997: Depeche Mode, “It’s No Good”

Depeche Mode keyboardist Andrew Fletcher died four days ago. Goddammit so much. I was never a DM superfan, but their songs and sound were the soundtrack of the 1990s, and “It’s No Good” was particularly popular among my group of friends, back in the day. 25 years ago I was at the cusp of a new relationship; I was hanging out with a group of renfaire types at Grand Valley practicing padded weapon fighting, and working at the low-paying bookstore and living in a crappy apartment and driving a crappy car and exhausting myself every day with kung fu and tai chi practice, as well as beginning the process of becoming a martial arts instructor. All of which is to say, for all the stress, it was a pretty good year.

Posted in MusicTagged 1980s, Bottom of the Top, nostalgia comment on The Bottom of the Top #22

The Bottom of the Top #21

2022-05-232022-05-23 John Winkelman

The end of May seems to be a locus for love ballads and smooth jams. It also, for the years represented here, was a week of transition from school to summer break. Even into 1997, when I had been out of school for a few years, that pattern followed. I spent 18 years (and one semester in Russia in 1994) being educated, and as they were my formative years, there is an emotional resonance with the end of a school year which will likely carry through for the rest of my life. It is not as strong an emotional tie as that which makes itself felt in late August/early September. But even into my fifties I feel a specific nostalgia as Memorial Day approaches.

1977: Barbara Streisand, “My Heart Belongs to Me”

I couldn’t say when I first heard “My Heart Belongs to Me.” I definitely did at some point, if only be the logic that popular music in 1977 was a small pool, particularly in rural Michigan, with parents who weren’t into anything harder than Manhattan Transfer. I’ve never had any particular opinions about Streisand one way or another, so if this song is familiar, it is only through osmosis. Then again, I would have been seven years old, just shy of my eighth birthday and near the end of second grade when this song was released.

1982: Dionne Warwick and Johnny Mathis, “Friends in Love”

I have certainly heard “Friends in Love” at some point in the past. Warwick and Matthis have beautiful voices and they work well together. This week in 1982 I was near the end of seventh grade, probably looking forward to a summer of milking cows and stacking bales, and maybe a quick trip to visit my dad, wherever he was living that summer. I would have been preparing for the Memorial Day Parade when the junior high band was conscripted to play with the high school band at the Springport VFW hall, to the indifference of the adults and the jeers of our classmates. So no particular nostalgia attached to this one, but it is a beautiful song and I appreciate it more now at 52 that I did when I was 12.

1987: Restless Heart, “I’ll Still Be Loving You”

I do vaguely remember “I’ll still be loving you,” and almost certainly heard it when it was on the charts. Restless Heart is a country band and so I likely heard it played on one of the several country stations which were more prevalent in the 1980s in rural Michigan. The MTV/cable era diminished the size of the slice of the pie which country music enjoyed, but it so greatly expanded the size of the pie that that rising tide lifted every music genre, including country, and made the birth of alt-country possible a few years later. Regardless, this is a fine song, though it doesn’t speak to me, one way or another. I would have been prepping for graduation in this week in 1987, so likely wasn’t paying attention to what was on the radio.

1992: Jon Secada, “Just Another Day”

The end of my fifth year of college I was moving out of off-campus housing at GVSU and into my first “adult” apartment in Kentwood with three friends, and just starting my brief career at West Michigan’s favorite Polish-Mexican restaurant, while prepping for my capstone classes. Which is to say, it was an exciting time, and busy, and though I have heard “Just Another Day” I don’t know if I heard it when it charted, or at some point in the future. I like the song, and Secada has a fine voice, though it doesn’t really stand out from the myriad similar songs which were released in the early 1990s.

1997: Heavy D, “Big Daddy”

I remember seeing this video on MTV more than once, though that could have been years after the song was released. I would have been working at the bookstore with nothing of note happening in my life, likely in a groove of working, working out, partying, and listening to folk, folk rock, and Tom Waits. I like this song, though and it looks like everyone in the video is having fun. Heavy D died in 2011 of a pulmonary embolism. He was born two years before me, and I remember hearing of his death and realizing that people who were my age are dying of the kind of things I used to associate with “old people.” And that was over a decade ago. So it goes.

Posted in MusicTagged Bottom of the Top, nostalgia comment on The Bottom of the Top #21

The Bottom of the Top #20

2022-05-162022-05-13 John Winkelman

As I progress through the years listening to all of these songs from the late 1970s through the late 1990s, I realize that, for the songs I have heard, some of the nostalgia and deja vu is offset, as for a lot of these entries I didn’t hear them until years (or decades) after they charted. But since each song is also a product of its time, there are multiple levels of temporal disconnect here. The songs are of one era, but I might have heard them decades later, and I am reviewing them now. So the various timelines of my memory and limbic system have become…entangled. So it goes in the age of instant everything, when the time is always “now.”

1977: Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis, Jr., “Your Love”

I don’t think I had heard this one before researching the songs for this week. I had heard of McCoo before, both in her capacity as the host of Solid Gold back in the 1980s, and of a member of The Fifth Dimension, which is, I think, the only place I had heard of Davis before now.

1982: Eddie Rabbitt, “I Don’t Know Where to Start”

This is a beautiful song in the vein of 1970s folk ballads, with maybe a little country mixed in. I have not heard this one before. But in style and tone it triggers a nostalgic shadow of pre-high school times, which is appropriate.

1987: Donna Allen, “Serious”

This is a very 80s song and associated video. As with the previous two on this list, I *might* have heard it, assuming we turned on the radio in the milking parlor in time to catch the first few songs in the countdown. It’s decent enough, but doesn’t really stand out from other songs like it, though the mid-song rap break is well done.

1992: Shanice featuring Johnny Gill, “Silent Prayer”

I *might* have heard “Silent Prayer” back in the day. Shanice and Gill have beautiful voices, and they work well together, but I didn’t feel much of a sense of recognition.

1997: Montel Jordan, “What’s On Tonight”

This is a beautiful slow-jam, but while I have heard of Montel Jordan (of course!) I can’t say for certain that I have heard “What’s On Tonight.”

Posted in MusicTagged Bottom of the Top, memory, nostalgia comment on The Bottom of the Top #20

The Bottom of the Top #19

2022-05-092022-05-09 John Winkelman

As we move into the middle of May the songs are freighted with the nostalgic sense that, now that the world has awakened, it’s time to get busy. Not that the songs are specifically about that, but these are what the world was listening to, more or less.

This project has prompted me to put together a timeline of where I have lived, gone to school, worked, and the people and events associated with each. Nostalgia mining, as Proust demonstrated, can be a great source of creative inspiration. And also ennui and existential dread.

1977: John Miles, “Slowdown”

This is another of those songs which, even if you have never heard it, you have heard it in some form or another. I can’t say if I heard it when it was first on the radio, but I know I heard it at some point in the years before I graduated from high school. And it kind of slaps.

Mr. Miles passed away this past December, at the age of 72.

1982: Genesis, “Man on the Corner”

Phil Collins and this era of Genesis were huge in my life back in the 1980s. I first heard of them at about the same time that music videos took over the pop world thanks to the original iteration of MTV. Abacab is an amazing album and “Man on the Corner” is a very specific vibe (in the parlance of our times) for a skinny, mouthy, geeky bookworm recently moved to an isolated farm in a small, insulated and insular farming community. Self-pity is not a great place to wallow, but it can bring its own form of empowerment.

1987: Peter Wolf, “Come as you Are”

I remember listening to this song on the bus into school at the end of my senior year at Springport, but I don’t think I had ever seen the video until now. Peter Wolf, formerly of the J. Geils Band, puts together a fantastic song, and a super-fun video. I imagine he had to sit down for a few days once the video was complete.

1992: Cause & Effect, “You Think You Know Her”

I don’t specifically remember hearing this song before, but it is familiar enough that I must have, though it does have that particular Synthpop sound which can cause some confusion when trying to sort out memories from (o god…) thirty years ago. This week in 1992 I would have been moving from a tiny apartment at Campus West to a HUGE apartment at Ramblewood, anticipating and dreading my last (and sixth) year of university studies, and I think just starting my brief career as a line cook and prep cook at Jose Babushka’s Polish/Mexican restaurant in Kentwood. Such were the early nineties.

1997: Kenny Lattimore, “For You”

This is a repeat from last week. Lattimore has a beautiful voice, and this is a beautiful song.

 

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The Bottom of the Top #18

2022-05-022022-05-02 John Winkelman

The core sample of stacked years which aligns with the 18th week of top-40 hits brings an interesting mix of hits.

1977: Alan O’Day, “Undercover Angel”

I have heard this song before, many times, though I don’t know if I was aware of it in early May 1977. I would have been seven, living in Jackson, and just finishing up second grade at Parnell Elementary school. Do I remember anything of Parnell Elementary? Faint shadows of learning left from right, and playing on huge piles of snow. King of the hill. The playground equipment of the 70s which would possibly be a violation of the Geneva Convention were it in use today. So though Undercover Angel is one of those songs that everyone of a Certain Age has heard, I couldn’t say that I heard it when it was on the charts.

1982: Genesis, “Man on the Corner”

In 1982 I was just finishing up seventh grade at Springport Junior High and hating every second of it. That doesn’t make 1982 special in any way; I hated all nine years I spent in the Springport school system, and though there were several bright spots, making the best of a bad situation is not at all the same as being in a good situation. So “Man on the Corner” is a good pick for a theme song for my adolescent years.

1987: Smokey Robinson, “Just to See Her”

Ahh, Smokey Robinson. I do remember this song, though I have not heard it in a long, long time. This would have been a month before I graduated from high school, and I was seventeen and carrying at least two torches for unwise and unrequited loves. I spent most of my junior and senior years listening to oldies, which in 1985 – 1987 meant songs from the fifties and sixties. So I may not have heard this song until after I left for college.

1992: Ozzy Ozbourne, “Mamma I’m Coming Home”

Ozzy again, with a repeat from earlier in the year. This is a really good ballad. I would have been listening to it as I drove to work at the terrible moving company where I worked for a few months, or possibly as I was walking the mile from the off-campus apartments to the student cafeteria where I worked a few hours a week for minimum wage and a free meal per shift which, considering minimum wage was around $3.50/hour, was a good deal.

1997: Kenny Lattimore, “For You”

I don’t remember hearing this song before putting this list together, but I have certainly heard of Lattimore in years past. I would have been working at the bookstore, special-ordering books by the truckload to make up for the gaps in the store inventory, and dating co-workers, as one does when working retail. I would have been growing restless with my living situation and looking for a new apartment, I believe. This is a beautiful song, and definitely would not have been my style back in my mid-twenties.

Posted in MusicTagged Bottom of the Top, nostalgia comment on The Bottom of the Top #18

The Bottom of the Top #17

2022-04-252022-04-27 John Winkelman

This week brings a fun mix of 40s, four of which I have heard before, and the last, “Gangstas Make the World Go Round”, was on here last week. I like the odd synchronicities which occur over decades, which could be catnip for statisticians of a particular mindset. For instance, Simon and Garfunkel’s “Wake Up, Little Suzie” was at #40 five years (or more specifically 4 years and 51 months) before Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al” which was on the list at the 1987 spot last week.

Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam made a splash my senior year of high school, and though I have not heard “Head to Toe” in, well, decades, it immediately brought back that slight despair of being a senior in high school and still riding the bus, but fortunately the bus drivers knew what to play to keep the inmates calm.

I do not recall having ever heard of M.C. Brains, but “Oochie Coochie” was familiar, so I probably saw it on MTV at some point.

And Westside Connection was on here last week.

I suppose an interesting narrative could be pieced together from which songs were in which place on which week, looked at not as a progression through the years, but as 52 core samples which, in a given location in consensus space is a stack of snapshots of what was going on “right now, only in 1987.” And once you have data, you can twist and squeeze it to form a narrative, and tell stories vertically rather than horizontally.

1977: Wings, “Maybe I’m Amazed”

1982: Simon and Garfunkel, “Wake Up, Little Suzie”

1987: Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, “Head to Toe”

1992: M.C. Brains, “Oochie Coochie”

1997: Westside Connection, “Gangstas Make the World Go Round”

Posted in MusicTagged Bottom of the Top, MTV, nostalgia comment on The Bottom of the Top #17

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weirdlilguyscats being weird little guys@weirdlilguys·
27 Jun

Hi everyone - taking some time off to mourn the loss of half the country’s rights and status as free citizens in America.

Please do what you can to support groups helping those that will now need to travel for reproductive care, like the @BrigidAlliance
https://brigidalliance.org/donate/

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4 of 5 stars to The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monáe https://www.goodreads.com/review/show?id=4790331558

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GennHutchisonGennifer Hutchison@GennHutchison·
20 Jun

Talking to someone about an estranged adult child and their parent, and the person could not understand the child cutting the parent off because "if they die, wouldn't you feel terrible you never made peace?" And it's interesting because... (cont'd)

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