Reminiscing You

On the one hand, it never bothers me to see the nose thumbed at the hipster doofii, and prejudices in music condemned. Almost all music is better than its detractors would have it, or else it would not have fans. So Frank Valish's "Musical Explorations, or My Ever-Shrinking Indie Cred" blog is generally a good thing.

On the other hand, there's certain things I don't like to see revisited:

*Shudder*

I remember the days when almost every band looked like this, and I remember it sucking. There's just such a uniform blandness, intensified and not diminished by the obligatory androgyny. So when Valish writes:

Thankfully, however, if one digs beneath the surface of Waite's pop career, there are more than a couple laudable compositions, and the second part of his set on this night featured some of this more gratifying material. In his lost late '90s/early '00s years, Waite released some truly affecting pieces of singer/songwriter pop, examinations of New York City life, introspections, possibly autobiographical, on a self-medicating former rock star, and narratives about young musicians dreaming of stardom. And it is songs like these that are the most moving and revelatory in terms of the artist John Waite has become. "Downtown," the tale of the downtrodden former star whose hit song is now more recognizably sung by another, is a window seldom seen into the consciousness of an artist whose more famous days are past him. And, even more impressively, when Waite launches into early career peaks, such as 1982's rocking "Mr. Wonderful" and such '70s Babys material as the "Midnight Rendezvous," or the show closer "Head First," it's like the years have melted away. Here, the man is untethered by his former fame or the weight of past hits, such like that which led the protagonist of "Downtown" to the street corner for his high 15 years ago. It's a man reborn. And for me, it is some small reassurance that maybe you can in fact go home again.

... I believe him. And I don't wish any ill on John Waite, whose music I wouldn't recognize if I heard it. Health and prosperity to him, says I. But dear sweet Lord, if there's anything I would like to remain in blissful ignorance of, it's 80's ballad stables like "Missing You" and "How Did I Get By Without You." I heard enough of those between the ages of 3 and 13 to last a lifetime.