Have you ever thought about how, as we progress as individuals, as we become mature, well-adjusted selves, we forsake the idols and obsessions of our childhood?
And whenever a memory occurs of how we used to be enthralled by something like dinosaurs, or Pokemon, or maybe the Zelda video games, or something similar, we put on our best cynical smirk and vehemently declare: "heh! silly kiddie stuff!", thus defacing the magic of these past moments with a Rubiconian finality.
To some, this phenomenon is a much needed aspect of maturity...
...But I have to pose a question:
Rather than erasing these former selves we once possessed, why don't we let them exist in concurrence with our present self? After all, it's against all logic that disavowing an experience that surely was overwhelmingly positive leads to enrichment. It seems much more apt to me that one should try to look for the why's. What was the reason a specific experience touched us? How exactly did it route through our synapses and bound us to it?
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I have a good memory of how and why I and people around me took a liking to Linkin Park, and it had nothing to do with the fact that the Media was universally touting them as the new best thing out there. Mind you, that time period was one where PC's (and thus - mp3s) were scarce for people my age, and so were dedicated zines or music TV stations. It was actually good old word-of-mouth that started this "enlightenment" of our young musically-inclined minds and initiated contacts based on artistic tastes; which is a level above generic childish tomfoolery. And word-of-mouth is, at least in my experience, a much more genuine propeller of interest than the the insidious ad plots of media overlords.
Any way you look at it, when Hybrid Theory first came out, it had a
sound. It was a sound that stood out and stuck with you. The hooks, the production, the samples, the layering were all exceedingly well-done and binding. Even my parents couldn't help but exclaim that they liked what they were hearing. Yeah, I guess the lyrics had a way of touching on themes only vaguely and being rather ordinary, but it was an enjoyable challenge to decipher and memorize them (note, I'm not a native speaker), eventually leading to the discovery that I could relate to them after all. And let's not pretend that we don't remember all of them by heart, shall we?
Besides, in an era where a lot of the music world liked to obsess on cars, jewelry, drugs and knife stabbings, it was certainly a respite to hear music about something... I don't know...
good?
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What I've found during my frail 20-something years of age is that there are no specific life periods for certain moods, emotions and mindsets. States we've been through may repeat themselves. There is no straight line, no final evolutionary destination. Which is why Hybrid Theory should always rest somewhere in our consciousness, in case it ever needs to be recalled and serve its purpose once again.
