Hello, 1990s music

By the time you read this, the Stone Temple Pilots would have already played in Manila. There was a slight hiccup when Scott Weiland initially missed his flight.

STP, with a career dating from 1986, is one of my generation’s rock bands. If you learned to play the guitar in those years, one of the first songs you played was “Plush.”

I remember the story of how they called themselves Mighty Joe Young first, until a lawyer told them some other musician had already claimed that name. I remember thinking they couldn’t go better than Mighty Joe Young, that the name Stone Temple Pilots just wouldn’t fly.

Of course I was wrong. What did a teenager during the post-Internet days know?

I never thought I’d be saying this—not especially after I sort of hid under R&B in the latter part of the decade—but I miss 1990s rock. I need to dig out my fictional plaid shirt and Doc Martens get-up. (Yes, I never had one of those. I wasn’t a cool kid.)

I remember a conversation with a boy when I was confused about rock all of a sudden. After learning to love Nirvana, Guns N’ Roses, STP, Pearl Jam and the rest because of my brothers, I had simply crossed over to Whitney Houston and R&B because I had become friends with girls who thought a girl who likes rock wasn’t, well, girly. That boy appealed to the writer in me. “Read the lyrics,” he said, “most of them are still about love. Most of them are very poetic.”

STP is no exception. There’s a line in “Still Remains” that goes: “Take a bath, I’ll drink the water that you leave.”

I hope everyone who watched had fun. I hope it didn’t rain.

1990S MUSIC

Last night, while having drinks with friends and strangers, conversation turned to 1990s music, from Oasis to Hootie and the Blowfish to Coco Lee. We took turns recalling band names and song lyrics from various musical genres, and it was hilarious how much of the novelty ones we loved and still remember.

“What was that other girl-group that was pitted against TLC and Destiny’s Child?” one asked. It took a while before we remembered All Saints.

“Who was that band that sang, ‘I’m so tired of playing, playing with this bow and arrow?’” Fifteen head-splitting minutes later, we remembered Portishead. Bonus question: What’s the title of that song? We didn’t have Google in those days, so many of us knew it as “Give Me a Reason” or some variation of it.

“What’s that slow song of Aqua that was used in the soundtrack of the film Sliding Doors?” Additional hint: “There is a train in the MTV.” We laughed first, noting that Aqua brought us songs like “Barbie Girl.”

“Who’s that actor who danced in a music video? He was sitting first, and then he tapped dance, and then he danced on the walls and then flew.” That was easy. After all, how many actors are known to dance so well? “Christopher Walken!” my brother said. The trickier questions were, “What was the name of the singer?” and “What was that song?”

We closed the night with the answers: The song was Weapon of Choice. The singer was Fatboy Slim.

Oh, this slow hello and goodbye to the sweet music of my youth!

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