and Words
You can’t quit until you try
You can’t live until you die
You can’t learn to tell the truth
Until you learn to lie
Can’t breathe until you choke
Gotta laugh when you’re the joke
There’s nothing like a funeral
To make you feel alive
Lyric excerpts from Musixmatch.
Raised on the radio, the early 80’s was a mosaic of music that hold fragments of memories from a partially misspent youth. While we may select one radio station that fell under the category ‘popular’, ‘jazz’, or ‘classic rock’, that’s the extent of choices you had. Radios had a handful of presets in which may select, though you were still a captive audience to what they played. There were cassette tapes, of course, but even they were limited. In a package the size of a small phone, you may store up to 90 minutes of music; if you wanted more options, you’d need to tote more these compact reels of magnetic tape that stored your music. Many had bins of these in our cars or backpacks in order to have more options.
Of course, today is different. We can configure a collection of tunes to precisely what we want in the sequence that we want. If we’d prefer more variability, we can elect to play those songs in random order. Failing that, you can configure the service to play something with the label of ‘Power Ballads’… or even have them create a collection that are similar to a specific song or band. Furthermore, it’s all customizable to the nth degree. Hence, it is precisely what we wanted, or at least we thought we wanted. Finally, this ultra-customized feed is played through your computer or phone, or even delivered wirelessly to your ear canal through tiny Bluetooth devices. It’s your own private concert.
That said, I do remember an instance of friends gathered at the beach. We listened to the radio on a boombox, in the way that you saw in the movie The Karate Kid. However, upon encountering an especially popular song coming on the radio, we might turn up the volume. As others heard it, they would scan for that radio station and do the same. Eventually, a collection of radios played the same music in perfect synchronicity as we enjoyed the warmth and the smell of the surf on a Florida beach. We can’t do that without a radio.
My tastes often leaned towards hard rock. Def Leppard’s “High ‘n’ Dry” played a pivotal part of those years in school. Furthermore, portions of that album spawned the idea of this very blog. Def Leppard had a fascination with drinking that permeated this album. I won’t tell you that I shared the same fascination, but the music spoke to me. Though, having been raised on the radio, I learned about other bands that were similar. Naturally, a wide array bands adorned the airwaves along with tracks from Def Leppard.
Among those bands was Mötley Crüe. I have a confession to make that may not be that popular; I never really cared for this band. Don’t get me wrong, musically they were similar. However, their songs gravitated towards desperately trying to gain popularity. I never cared for cliques or popularity. In many ways, I was most frequently collateral damage of popularity in high school. To cater to it, even in musical tastes, felt eerily self-defeating for a social misfit. Those songs included:
- Shout at the Devil
- Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room
- Girls, Girls, Girls
- Dr. Feelgood
While I didn’t necessarily shun them, turn the radio station, or the channel on television. It simply didn’t compel to spend my money on their music; I tolerated this group. There were plenty of other bands and albums that I enjoyed; Mötley Crüe was far down that list, if on it at all.
During an instance when I indulged in an auto-generated playlist, it introduced me to a new tune. It intrigued me. It spoke, nay it screamed, of a fast, haunting tale of addiction. The music consequently moved as fast as you might expect from the mind of an addict. The words flip-flopped back and forth between each side of a coin. It was the kind of song that inspired you into action, both in its music and in the sledgehammer bluntness of the words. There was a distinct honesty to it… a brutally, unapologetic rawness to it. It was mesmerizing. Who is this band?
This song is different yet familiar and piqued my curiosity. It was “Life is Beautiful”, and no, it’s not a reference to the Roberto Benigni film of the same name. The name of the group is Sixx: A.M. and it’s out of an album called “The Heroin Diaries Soundtrack”. If the ‘Sixx’ looks familiar, it’s the same Nikki Sixx bassist and founding member of Mötley Crüe. It’s a refreshing contrast from the formulaic, sophomoric tunes from his other band, whose main aspiration always felt like commercial success. “The Heroin Diaries” was a concept album.
The entire album is a musical retelling of his book, The Heroin Diaries: A Year in the Life of a Shattered Rock Star. Or as it is sometimes described, an accompaniment to the book. Specifically, it’s an autobiographical telling of Nikki Sixx’s struggle with heroin addiction. And while I’ve yet to read it, I’m intrigued. Autobiographical concept albums are exceedingly rare; this is a purple unicorn.
Perhaps it is not so ironic that it took this level of rawness to appeal to me. Life is not shallowly defined by the moments of hedonism and peer pressure of Mötley Crüe fame. Observing a life of indulgence is like living by only eating chocolate cake. Adversity and more importantly our overcoming it more crisply defines life. Furthermore, that conflict defines our character. This story had teeth; it had substance.
After years of tolerating Nikki Sixx’s music, I finally came to enjoy it. Even respect it. An honest thank you.