That Was Then; This Is "Later"

This morning (the day after Christmas, 2021), I'm getting into the mood to do housework by listening to Curve, to whom I'd not listened since the mid-'90s. I remember having the Cuckoo CD. Their music sounds "of that time," but not necessarily "dated," though it's sure to stir some nostalgia in some. Myself, I barely remember much of my life during the mid-'90s – my mind had to throw a lot of babies out with the bathwater in that regard. I do remember seeing this image of Toni Halliday*, Curve's singer, however. How could I have forgotten that? The Beatrice Dalle of rock. Dang. Nice shoes, too.

Curve's music is sounding nice 'n' noisy now, with the softish feminine vocals juxtaposing well with the hard-edged sounds. Distorted overtones floating over everything. Mechanistic beats. Really cool sounds. Compressed, but spatial. This music came out at the time when I was losing touch with what was "going on" in popular music, however. Instead of MTV, I was watching watching Filipino sitcoms and by-the-numbers straight-to-video erotic-thriller movies on cable TV. I can listen to music such as Curve's unperturbed by much mnemonic association, so it sounds "new" to me now.

My only resolution for 2022 is to listen only to music which I've neglected over the course of my life. I have an immense digital music collection, most of which I've downloaded "for later." There is so much new music being puked into the internetric sewer now, and though some of it might be worth my time, I want to be more familiar with what music was contemporaneous with or influential upon the music I've known over the course of my life. I need to know the rest of the story, to understand better what might have had made an impression upon me by proxy or had been lacking from my comprehension. We're all being thrust so hard and fast in the future that it seems a good idea to have a better grasp of the past.

(*) Toni Halliday has released solo recordings; most recently, the Roll the Dice EP, which splendidly features that gritty Oberheim synth bass sound that I myself tend to over-use.