When I was a young boy, long before I ever knew how many poor life choices I would make in the future, I was already an anxiety-riddled person. I remember going places with my parents and always hating every second of it. Back then I didn’t know why I immediately got into a bad mood when I had to leave the house for something I hadn’t really planned for. I would learn way later why I had these issues, but that’s not the point. So I did what any moody child/teenager would do, which is turn up the music and close yourself off from the world.
I used to have this blue Ipod Nano, back before phones were able to hold the entire world in one small device. We’d download totally legal MP3s through limewire and I even remember taking them from youtube directly through shady websites that probably own some of my organs through me clicking the wrong button. I’d bring this Ipod everywhere because music used to do an amazing job at calming me down when I was feeling anxious. It still does to this day and I almost always wear my headphones when I’m out of the house (and not talking to people).
I want to go on a small tangent before I get to the point of this month’s playlist, so please allow me this. There used to be small games on the Ipod Nano. I remember playing solitaire for hours on end as well as a game where you used a paddle to break blocks with a small ball. But the game I played the most was a game in which you had to guess the name of the song that was currently playing as fast as possible. You would get more points if you guessed it quicker. I had hundreds and hundreds of songs on my Ipod and would play this game repeatedly. Lots of good fun was had, I wonder if something similar exists for spotify. Let me know if you know something like this, I might do some googling as well.
But the playlist for this month has songs that helped me calm down. And specifically songs from one artist. I saw a TV program as a kid about auditions for a Tarzan Musical. The music in that show blew my mind. I’d seen Tarzan before, but because I was so young I never looked beyond it. Now I had a reason to look it up again and I found out the soundtrack was by an artist called Phil Collins. I don’t have to tell you who he is, everyone knows who Phil Collins is. He used to be in the band Genesis, did the soundtrack for Tarzan and Brother Bear and has made some of the best songs I’ve ever listened to. To celebrate my anxiety as a child I’ve made a playlist with some of my favorite Phil Collins songs. To highlight one song, I distinctly remember sitting in a restaurant or bar, not sure what it was, with my parents and just listening to Groovy kind of love in an attempt to ease my nerves. Ah, to be young again.
I’ve also added some of his songs that I only really discovered later or started appreciating later. Two songs that come to mind are both versions of the song take me home. One of them is just Phil and is amazing on its own, but there is another version with the hip-hop group Bone Thugs N’ Harmony. Some of you who are less familiar with this genre of music might at least know of Krayzie Bone, who was part of the track Ridin Dirty. Does that also not ring a bell, perhaps you know the Weird Al’ Yankovic spoof of this song; White and Nerdy. See, you know slightly obscure 90s hip-hop artists just as well as the rest of us. The almost soft toned rapping really elevates the song to another level and makes it even more iconic for me. It’s probably the better version.
Anywho, I hope you enjoy this month’s playlist. I’m thinking of compiling some of my favorite boy bands for next month, so I hope you all stay tuned for that. Thanks for reading!
Opal Kaharis 