Monday, May 21, 2007

College Soundtrack #1

pilgrimgirl commented that she'd listened to When In Rome's track The Promise obsessively (my adjective) in response to this post, which got me thinking about the songs that defined my college experience. Well, here goes.

Through most of high school I was solidly focused on Depeche Mode. I'd dub copies of friends' tapes (and copies of copies. And copies of copies of copies...), record songs off the radio, try to find out who had the mega-mix of blah blah blah. It wasn't all about Depeche Mode. I listened to Erasure too.

Then one fateful Saturday evening, I was getting horrible reception for KROQ, and slid down the dial to the now-defunct KNAC 105.5. I can't say I ever listened to the station before or after, but on that magical evening, they played Metallica's Master of Puppets album from start to finish without commercial interruption. And I was hooked. This was well after the commercial success of And Justice For All, which I never enjoyed as enthusiastically as Puppets. Whatever, I'd broken through both band and genre barriers.

On the eve of my freshman year, Metallica's self-titled album was released, and the first single entered heavy rotation in my life. I never had shoulder length hair, never owned a Metallica concert shirt (please, no gifts), never cut class to smoke, and was one of the new fans that the old ones resented.

Enter Sandman - Metallica

Addendum [5/24/2007]
Video: