IdleRich said:
Another point, it also seems from reading this thread that for a lot of people it was something that you had to make a decision on during your school days because it decided what group you were in or, more than that, what type of person you were.
ha ha yeah maybe,
my best mate at school was a massive buy everything smiths fan, it was just something he did and i didn't, he liked some of the stuff i liked too ie prince and a bit of hip hop. Props to him as i couldn't do it with the Smiths.
Maybe it was the very British thing in a way, all the music i liked seemed almost to be in full, american or caribbean kind of colour, a different and exciting sexy world to me, even house music which was a kind of transatlantic handshake came with area code 303/212 and otherworldy sonics that either mirrored black american contemporary music in a new way or was re/misenterpreted in the uk somewhat thru the lens of drug culture with a whole new set of terms and reasons for existing that needed further exploring, as well as dub which to fresh ears sounds like nothing else, whilst reggae seemed like strange political church music, a bit dangerous as wellm also hiphop was hightly politicised at the time which was both 'real' rather than just bored angst and extremely interesting sonically and lyrically, and taught me a hell of alot.
British guitar music, at the time was kind of typified at that time by the smiths ,and just seemed to be grey and from the 60's, a kind of kitchen sink drama view of the world, all mixed up overly sensitive boys in grey motheaten jumpers who can barely speak and secretly hate the world but love it so as well.
in someways i looked like the model of a typical teenage smiths fan if i'm to be honest, but the cap just didn't fit.. i didn't want to live or revel in that at all, i wanted escape, surprise and also you can't dance to the smiths.