Would a conversation between friends inspire a post on HIVE? Well, let's find out. However, I'm convinced that it can. And even more so, if it has music as the absolute protagonist.... In 2004, for those who don't know, I was only 12 years old. Which is the same as growing up with: Gwen Stefani on her first solo album, Green Day and the ‘American Idiot’, witnessing the emo era of music at its most extreme and undisputed peak, and to top it all off in a world dominated by the influence of television.
Mobile phones, laptops, even the Internet itself didn't have the reach or the power that they undoubtedly have today. And this is not a minor fact. Let's not forget that 21 years ago, the world was so different from what we are used to today that it is simply surreal. Music, even the most pop and commercial, had that disruptive and transgressive tinge. ‘What you waiting for’ by the former No Doubt vocalist was a single that broke all listening records and weeks in the charts all over the USA and Europe.
Fundamentally, it was about the pressure on an artist to produce a song that is popular, famous and a hit. All in record time. And being (always referring to myself in the first person) a teenager, in a time of analogue-digital transition, let me confess that those evenings are one of the episodes I miss the most... Now, as an adult, I understand all the editorial changes that MTV underwent. Companies are like that, they mercilessly chase money, and audience; I understand that, but yesterday I had a conversation with a co-worker....
He insisted to me that one of the best times for music was the 2000's; he specifies the year 2004. Usher, My Chemical Romance, Linkin Park, The Killers, Papa Roach, Slipknot, Sum 41, Blink 182, Franz Ferdinand, U2, The Rasmus, Three Days Grace, Kelly Clarkson, Hilary Duff, Ill Nino, Black Eyed Peas, Evanescence, and I could go on for over two more paragraphs. The list is almost endless. Undoubtedly, how underrated is this unusual and forgotten year of our lives... As we recount this year in time and space, it is hard not to sigh and remember with appreciation...
Nostalgia. That feeling that takes hold of you and me when we get involved in time at some point in our lives.... It's simply tremendous how much of what we are today, figuratively and literally, is closely related to our adolescence in that increasingly distant 2004. And yes, this post is perhaps a bit more niche. It will be well understood by those who were born in the 90's and are at least 30 years old (or older, in my case). It's still hard for me to process that 2 decades have passed between that little girl who wanted to make herself up like Amy Lee and the woman I am today and write this...
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