It's a wonderful thing, music.

It's amazing how one band can stick with you and keep you company for a majority of your life. For me, that band is Mindless Self Indulgence. It's going on the 10th (!) year of listening to them for me, and it got me thinking. I get into bands a lot and get out of them just as easy, but with MSI, once I got into them, it was like falling in love for the first time. I remember, I was only in the fifth grade and I was hanging out at my cousin Nikki's house. It was New Years Eve, 1999. Her and I were talking while all of our parents and relatives were getting drunk and playing cards, and she invited me to her room to play some super nintendo and listen to this new band she just found out about. She was older, about 16, so she had more access to these things than I did, and I relied on her to find out about new music. We entered the room and she popped in the CD, it was called "Tight". Now, before I go on about my love of this CD, I need to give you a little musical background of mine. My mom listened to a lot of music, so we always had a bunch of cassettes and CDs in the house. I would always take them when she wasn't looking, not knowing what band or artist they were and just listen to them. In this way, I found a lot of really good music such as Green Day, The Offspring, Toni Braxton, TLC, The Police, The Ramones, and my favorite band at the time, No Doubt. I liked a large variety of music, and I listened to it as much as I could.

So anyway, there we are in the room, and she puts the CD in. I remember thinking to myself when the opening song came on: "This is so different, It's crazy and it's amazing!" I was instantly in love. I asked her immediately if I could have a burned copy of it (the technology was just getting popular, and they had a burner, which at the time was amazing!). She gave the CD and I listened to it on repeat for ages. After just a short time, MSI easily usurped No Doubt as my favorite band. I would listen to them all the time in the subsequent year, and I would sing the songs (Which I knew quite well by that time) to myself when I couldn't listen to them. About a year and a half later, I still listened to them all the time, still in love. I was at a family gathering that Nikki was also attending, when she told me that MSI had come out with a new CD entitled "Frankenstein's Girls Will Seem Strangely Sexy" which I thought was absolutely hilarious. I asked my mom for some money to buy a CD, and she made me do a ton of chores for the money. I did them without question as this CD was extremely important to me. She took me to the store and I found the CD, I remember the hilarious scene that ensued. My Mom took the CD up to the counter to pay for it, and the lady noticed she was buying it for me. The dialogue went something like this:

Lady: "Um, maam, you do realize that this CD is highly inappropriate for kids, right? There is a lot of bad things in here."

Mom: "He can handle it, it's just music. He'll just get the CD from his cousins anyway"

Lady: "Still, I think you should really think about buying this for him, I mean, I've listened to it and it's got some really bad stuff"

Mom: "Don't tell me how to raise my kid and just ring up the God damn CD, will you?"

Lady gets really offended look on her face, I laugh.

I get home with the CD and I'm all excited. I pop it in and listen to it all the way through while playing pokemon. It was beyond words for me, how much I loved and still love that album. If there was one album that I could listen to for the rest of my life, it would be Frankenstein's Girls. The songs were so unique, and each one was so different. There is just a certain sound that attracts me when it comes to music, and that album nails it perfectly. From Jimmy's crazy vocal range, to the amazing bass lines, to the absolute best composition I've heard in my life, everything was so perfect about that album for me. I don't know about anyone else, but there are certain songs that will move me emotionally and make me inspired and ready to take on the world, and this whole album does that to me, even to this day. The day that CD came out is the day the cemented MSI as my favorite band for the rest of my life, at least so far. (The prospect is looking bleak for other bands) MSI is the only band I have listened to consistently for all these years. There has been no breaks, no lapses in listening, just always MSI. There are other bands that I absolutely love as well, and that make me happy to listen to, but there is no other band that has had such an effect on me as MSI. Tub Ring is the only other band that comes anywhere near close, and even then, not so much. (Even though I absolutely LOVE Tub Ring.)

The whole point of this post was to point out how great music can be, and the effect it can have on some people. It's amazing, it is.

Listening to: Kill the Rock - Mindless Self Indulgence