Weekly Check In: Life Lessons from Childhood CD’s

Last Thursday I was cleaning up my room a bit, and found an old CD book of mine. Found isn’t really accurate. It’s been occupying a drawer in my desk for years now, doing nothing. I decided to put it in my closet, and free up my desk real estate. I also decided to open it.  A lot of is old DVD’s that my Netflix/Amazon Prime/Hulu accounts have made moot. Then there’s a bunch of picture CD’s back from before my smart phone made my digital camera moot. Then there are the CD’s. For some reason I didn’t think there were many of them left. There’s about 20 though, the majority burned sometime between 2003-2005. I went from 17-20 during that time frame.

I typically listen to either podcasts or audio books in my car via my smart phone. I started doing this a few years ago in order to break my bad texting and driving habit. If the phone is doing something, I stay off it. It worked. I sadly listen to a lot less music now. I listened to a lot of music this weekend.  I surprisingly listened to a lot of good music. I listened to a lot of stuff I haven’t listened to in forever, and I think I learned some very important things, not just about music, but about myself as well.

• By and large, I have always had impeccable mixed CD making abilities. I’m just going to brag about that. There were definitely a couple of songs that made me scratch my head, but nothing overtly embarrassing. As someone whose youth is littered with embarrassing choices, I’m proud of that.
• 17 year old me had the soul of a 55 year old divorced father of 2. I reached this conclusion due to the inclusion of “Red, Red Wine” on no less than 4 CD’s.
• “Little Black Back Pack” is a legit jam, that should be played more at bars. This goes double for Soul Decision’s “Faded.”
• “Uptown Girl” IS the best Billy Joel Song. It’s also the only Billy Joel song I’ve never got sick of.
• Justin Timberlake peaked with FutureSex/LoveSounds. Everything after that is garbage.
• LFO will always be known for “Summer Girls.” “Every Other Time” is a much better song.
• I am the type of guy who has strong opinions about LFO.  In 2017.
• Maybe because he just died, but I’m very proud of how much Tom Petty I had scattered through them, and not just “American Girl.”
• Nelly is timeless and classic.
• The Beach Boys are awesome.
• If AIM away messages were still a thing, my go-to song to quote would still be R. Kelly’s “Ignition.”
• “Champagne Supernova” is a better song than “Wonderwall.” “Don’t Look Back in Anger,” is a better song than both.
• I’m incapable of choosing whether “All Star,” or “Walking on the Sun,” is the better Smash Mouth song.
• I’m the kind of guy who spent an entire day trying to figure out which Smash Mouth song I prefer. In 2017.
• The only Bruce song on any of these CD’s is “Born to Run,” and I am ASHAMED by this.
• OAR deserves a renaissance.

This is only after getting through about half of the cd’s, so get ready for some more very deep, very important thoughts in a Round 2 post soon.