High school is a weird time in life.
I was young, impressionable and immature. Everything that felt important at the time turned out to surprisingly insignificant. Although, I didn’t realize this until years later. Like most people, I learned from those awkward teenage years and have used those experiences to grow into the person I am today.
Because this is a blog about music, I will not bore you with stories from my glory days but rather introduce you to our TBT topic this week. The top 5 influential songs of our high school days. Just as I have evolved and grown as a person since high school, so have my musical preferences. The following is a list of songs that I consider the roots of the passion I have for music. Enjoy.
5: Sleeping In by The Postal Service
I must confess, it took a few listens for me to enjoy this song. The electronic style of The Postal Service was rather foreign to me at the time. I was fully dedicated to guitar driven, punky music full of power chords and lyrics almost exclusively about some kind of breakup. But this song helped teach me that different styles of music are entertaining and equally as impressive. It also introduced me lyrics that comment on more than just ex-girlfriends.
4: Admit It! by Say Anything
Say Anything was one of the first bands that I listened to that weren’t exactly “mainstream.” I learned about them through a friend who introduced me to the album …Is a Real Boy. I loved that album and this song really stuck out to me. I still listen to it frequently and have discovered similar bands to Say Anything that I have come to love based solely on this song.
3: Screaming Infidelities by Dashboard Confessional
Through this song, which I listened to on repeat for several months, I learned that songs about love, or in the case the loss of it, can be so much deeper and darker than, say, Blink 182’s Going Away to College, for example.
2: Cute Without the E (Cut From the Team) by Taking Back Sunday
The dual singing of John Nolan and Adam Lazzara is absolutely stunning. But what’s even more stunning is how intense and clever the lyrics of this song are. Because of this song, I learned to value that clever wordiness and imagery in future music discovery.
1: At the Bottom of Everything by Bright Eyes
Bright Eyes is easily my most influential band, and if it wasn’t for this particular song, I would never have taken an interest in the Conor Oberst fronted band. I had a friend who literally forced me to listen to this song in his car one evening. I distinctly remember protesting and asking to listen to something that i was already familiar with. I loved my music and honestly didn’t think much of expanding my horizons. But as soon as I heard his voice sing those extremely poetic and encrypted lyrics, I was hooked. If it wasn’t for this particular song, my music collection would likely only consist of Blink-182, Green Day, New Found Glory and a handful of other similar bands. This is, by far, the most influential song I have ever listened to and I am so grateful that I did.
-Grant
We Are Not Music Critics 