NOTES

I thought I was going to listen to this album "in the background while I did other stuff" but that transition moment from Track 1 to Track 2 did me in. I was immediately transported back to high school listening to this album thinking I was going to listen to this album "in the background while I did other stuff." Today I'm sitting in my living room on my office chair trying to figure out how to make a playlist for my website because everything I've tried doesn't work and I'm determined to figure it out or at least piece something together.

Though this came out when I was just starting middle school I probably wasn't allowed to listen to the radio extensively yet and therefore I didn't really get into this album until probably 1999 or 2000, which was prime time for me to be spending nearly all of my free time online chatting with friends while I made websites. I had probably heard the radio singles hundreds of times by then.

Of course at that nice age of 16 the things I liked about the album included the fact that one of the songs is called "High-Fiving MF" so I could make up some story about what it stood for and lower the volume on this song every time it played, shouting along inside my heart. It was also because there's a part in the middle that goes on just a little too long before the breakdown and it makes you feel a little uncomfortable like, hey, what are we doing here? I love a song that makes you feel uncomfortable.

In the mid-late 90s, I remember asking my mom in the car what "copacetic" meant and I didn't understand her answer in context because the song "Bound for the Floor" is angry and hopeless and I didn't understand that yet. By the time I became obsessed with Local H only a few years later, having seen them in concert and felt the potential of palpable energy of music for one of the first times, I got it.

Every review for this album that I've read compares it to Nirvana and Pearl Jam because for some reason music journalism has you deciding your level of appreciation for a band based on how much they do or don't sound like another band. I don't really think of them that way - they are part of the grunge genre that was vaguely called "alternative rock" when I was growing up and I really liked that they were self-aware, self-destructive, dysfunctional, and funny about it. When I was looking for fun facts I found more of that, so I guess instead of many fun facts about the album, this entry will give you many fun facts about me!

Though I won't be able to count them among my favorite songs, "Nothing Special" and "Eddie Vedder" both bring me to an interesting moment in my backstory that I thought I had lost to memory. "Nothing Special" also has something unsettling to it that makes you feel uncomfortable in the intensity.

Okay I understand
But I don't wanna be your friend
I don't need another friend
I've got too many friends...
That's it, I quit, I don't give a shit

At 16, that lyric was EVERYTHING to me.

"Back in the Day" made me very emotional and I wanted to cry for some reason but it felt so silly and I overanalyzed it so much that it never happened. I think I once put "Freeze-Dried (F)lies" on a "sexy songs" playlist and I still agree with that assessment even though it also makes me feel weird.

Overall, listening to this album beginning to end was a journey of perspective. The ending of "Manifest Destiny, Pt. 2" hits especially interestingly, speaking of feeling uneasy. I bet if I played a Pearl Jam or Nirvana album I wouldn't feel so weird and uncomfy, which is a gift that only some bands can give.

Local H is a band I was obsessed with for 3-4 months and listened to nonstop after seeing them in concert, and then basically never focus-listened to them again until recently. It's not that I disliked them, I simply integrated them into the "shuffle" of my music library. I think this happens sometimes when I need a band/album during a certain emotional moment, then it passes and it's just part of me. I'll be interested to see how the album Ham Fisted (1995) hits.