by littlewillow
possible submission for the See Me, Repeat Project (?)
"I'm living in a pop trash movie,
When you are head-over-heels over anything, it seems, you end up having
to explain yourself to anyone else who doesn't have the same feelings about that
object of your affection. I have been a Beatles fan for as long as I can remember,
a Led Zeppelin fan for almost as long, and a strong proponent of many of the pop
acts of the late '90s and today. But my recent interest in Duran Duran has been
met with scoffs and scorn, and everyone around me figures it's just a phase that I need to deal with.
But the question is, can you deal with it? As a member of Generation-Y, I'm not
*supposed* to like Duran Duran. I'm supposed to be part of the angst-ridden, post-Nirvana
crowd that likes hip-hop and this sludge that supposed to be rock 'n' roll, and I'm
just not having it. I yearn for the days when lyrics didn't have
to be incendiary, or on the other side of the spectrum, pleasing as Pixie
Stix rolling down your throat. It's so nice, then, to pull out your
CDs and listen to songs from an era when it was cool to have lyrics
that actually meant something, and actually have music that went along with
it that wasn't being programmed by a computer synthesizer.
And yes, that's where Duran Duran came into my life - all through a matter of feeling. I discovered that I had been a fan of their stuff
without actually knowing it was them. Feeling pretty stupid, I picked myself
up and tried to make up for lost time. Maybe I wasn't part of the Durannie cult but I could
still be a formidable fan, couldn't I? So I started buying up the albums (on CD, not vinyl sadly),
buying books and merchandise on eBay, trying to prove that yes, I was a full-fledged Duran
Duran fan. But you can never go home again, really. That was part of history that
I never can relive again - because I wasn't there the first time. The hair,
the videos that launched their career, the wild fans at the concerts, these are things that
I will never witness first-hand.
What to do? I guess I can pretend to be someone else not me. The original members of Duran
Duran are each old enough to be my father. But the music never dies. It may have
been almost two decades when some of these songs I'm enamored with were
on the Billboard charts, but good music endures.
That's what Duran Duran is to me - in all its different forms. That pop trash that comes in for a fleeting moment,
that is exactly what Duran Duran isn't. Duran Duran will endure for generations and generations after,
because the marriage of thought-out lyrics and amazing melodies will stand
on their own for years to come.
All this time I was thinking how terrible of a fan I was. In all reality, I was just
doing my part - no matter how small, how miniscule - preaching the word of Duran Duran.
There are things that become part of your everyday routine, your ordinary world. For me, Duran
Duran is part of my life - in their catalog, there is a song that has fit every single
mood that I've experienced in my life to date. No small feat. It's like
the music worked its way into my soul, my heart. And once it's there,
it's there for life.
Everything else that doesn't, it's the dust that blows away like a distant memory.
we star together in every scene.
We'll all be famous for just a few minutes,
part of a celluloid dream."
- "Pop Trash Movie" by Duran Duran, 2000
visitors since 09/29/00.