Adopting music

I had an interest in music before 1994 but not like after my grade 8 summer. I was into the Doors and I would listen to the Beatles albums that my parents had but I was completely out of the loop concerning the anything new. Of course I knew Smells like Teen Spirit and Jeremy and November Rain but as far as knowing names and albums I was in the dark.
My best friend Jess had really gotten into Grunge for the past few years but even though my best friend was listening to new and underground music I still had taken no interest. Music wasn't my thing but Jess and I found common interest in comedy and more specifically Kids In The Hall. One day at the end of grade 8 maybe it was just after graduation or maybe just before I saw the video for Black Hole Sun by Soundgarden. Something immediately clicked between me and that song and the incredible video that accompanied it and all of a sudden I was in love. I called Jess and asked her if she had the album that Black Hole Sun was on and she did, Superunknown.

By the end of the week I was listening to Soundgarden, Stone Temple Pilots, Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins. Also in that week I had not stopped watching Much Music ever since I had seen Black Hole Sun and was craving more music and I was now taping music video onto VHS. I somehow had connected so deeply with Alternative music and it now taken over my life and all I cared about was listening to music and learning about new bands. Through out the summer I would begin to listen to Radiohead, Soul Asylum, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Blind Melon, Alice in Chains and of course the band that completely took over the summer and bled into the fall of my first year of high school the Offspring. The single on the radio Come Out and Play was catchy and fun but did not reflect the rest of the punk attitude record. When my friends and I first heard the whole album probably around the end of summer it was a sound that none of us had ever heard. We wanted more. I grew up listening to mellow sixties records that were collecting dust in my parents stereo cabinet. I was certainly familiar with new music and had been taking an active interest in it recently but this music was like nothing any of us had ever heard. It was fast and aggressive with a lack of solos and it just churned out raw energy and emotion. I started listening to music at a time of great transition. Kurt was dead and Grunge was still popular but it was on it's way out. All the Grunge artists with new records were the last gasp of the genre. When you really think about Grunge was almost an 80's genre when the scene which was close to dying was thrust into the spotlight with the popularity of Nirvana. Grunge was very dirty and hard for a general population to listen to but it had great ideas and was marketable. The big energy of sound with good song writing ideas, a classic rock tone and pop sensibility had now turned into great, big albums. Now, it had paved the way for the radio punk explosion which would include mainly Offspring and another band from the fall of 1994 and just in time for back to school: Green Day. It was the year punk exploded and music just seemed to be getting better and better.