A little souvenir from that terrible year

1990.

I was a Sophomore in high school.  I can't say I particularly liked high school, a feeling shared by most people on the low end of the high school social spectrum.  But, there were three good things to come from that year (there might have been more, but I can't think of them at the moment).

First, The Trash Can Sinatras released the album Cake.  Although I cannot say they are my favorite musical group (their follow up album kinda stunk), they did produce my favorite album ever.  I enjoy all the songs on it, I never tire of it, and if I'm stuck someplace, left with my mind to wander, I will usually go through this entire album in my head.

It was in the shower tonight that I started thinking about the second good thing to come from 1990.  On the same day that I purchased Cake, I picked up another album called Cloudcuckooland from the indie brit group, The Lightning Seeds.  Although I was willing to shell out the money to have Cake make the transition from cassette tape to CD, Cloudcuckooland had no such honor.  It's entirely possible that I have the cassette tape stored somewhere, but I have long since lost the means to play it (I haven't owned a cassette player since my last car died in 2006).

As I perused through iTunes looking for Cloudcuckooland (sadly, all of Ian Broudie's earlier work has been boiled down to a "best of" album), I started thinking about the third good thing to come from 1990; Reading Writing & Arithmetic by The Sundays.  (Very obscure piece of trivia, but the 'Reading' in the album title is pronounced RED-ing, as in the band's hometown, Reading, Berkshire, England).  Of the three bands, this one is the one I felt the most guilty for not keeping up with, as I almost completely forgot about them.

As I Googled for information about their current status, I stumbled across this blog about Ingrid Michaelson and her album, Girls & Boys.  I haven't had a chance to listen to the entire album, but I did sample all the songs on iTunes and I have to say I was impressed.

Then I noticed the date of the album release...2007.

I guess the one good thing about being in high school is that your ear is a lot closer to the ground when it comes to music.  There was no way I would have let 3+ years pass on something that piqued my interest this way.

I shouldn't let this get to me too much, though.  It's that same disconnection that has kept me from hearing the latest Britney Spears song.