Wednesday, January 28, 2009

everything changes but you

when i was in primary school, my mother gave me rm5 a week to spend on food for recess. i decided to skip the fried wantans and curry mee and blow the money instead on the fortnightly publication of "smash hits". they only cost rm4.80 back then (now they're close to rm20...*shakes fist at inflation*), but it was a large amount of money for a 10-year-old with a rm5 allowance.

it's no surprise then that my childhood and early adolescence was largely defined by the music i listened to and the celebrities that adorned my walls. speaking of celebrities, i recall sticking a jesse spencer poster somewhere in my room, back when he was a teenybopper on "neighbours". look at him now...a surgeon on "house". good job, mr spencer!

anyway, back to the music.

1994


i have a confession to make...i cried when take that split up 13 years ago. i remember bawling while listening to their farewell press conference, which they delivered in thick mancunian accents (only robbie isn't from manchester...he hails from stoke-on-trent) that i couldn't understand. yes, i was that big a take that fan. it's my sister's fault.

what i really wanted to do was post the video for "pray", which features that classic mark owen beach white shirt pose as well as the obligatory shirts off boyband thing but i guess this one, with robbie singing lead (woot!) is good enough.

1995


this was my favourite boyzone song until "no matter what" was released in 1998 (11 years ago?!). apparently the boys figured out that stephen was gay during the filming of this video. maybe it was the insincere, almost creepy way that he bit his lip as he ogled his teacher. this one's for all you guys out there who have ever had a crush on that cute post-form 6 substitute teacher. =P

by the way, check out boyzone's humble beginnings here. satisfaction guaranteed. lol.



when i was 11, galaxie was the hot local entertainment magazine that cost a quarter of smash hits but unfortunately was also about three-quarters less cool. but hey! rm5 a week! sometimes, i get hungry during recess and don't have enough money for my smash hits fix. well, galaxie had a pen pal column and i had several penpals. most of us used pen names.

mine was howie d. ooer.

1996


in simon cowell's autobiography, he said that "bye bye bye", the breakout hit for n'sync, was originally intended for 5ive. but the british lads didn't like the song and passed on it. boy, what a mistake huh? anyway, this is n'sync when their dance moves were lame and justin was scrawny, not sexay. and the cheesiness just keeps on comin'.



the brits not only loved aussie soaps, they also loved their music. it explains why human nature appeared in the pages of my favourite music mag. this song received quite a good amount of airplay here too. i kinda recall recording it off the radio into one of my many, many mixtapes.

1997


how many people have even heard of OTT (over the top...yes they had a thing for acronyms then)? they survived for a year before being dropped by their label, but i remember them having some pretty good songs. they did a nice cover of air supply's "all out of love" (cheese alert!) which had an okay reception over here. oh well.



oh speaking of penpals, i am reminded of one of my penpals who claimed she was scott's cousin and was dating sean. she also said that she was one of the two girls talking at the stairs in 5ive's video of "until the time is through" (my fave 5ive song). right.

and is it just me or was it fashionable back then for every boy band to have a rap interlude in their songs? re: kavana, backstreet boys, pseudo-rap-pop-funk 5ive?

1998


i have a specific memory of watching this at a friend's place one afternoon after having lunch with some other classmates. ah. now, dave's posed nude for a couple of gay mags while his 3 siblings have gone on to sorta successful music careers in thailand. i wonder what they're doing now that the thai political situation's rockin' away?

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does anyone else miss the cheesiness that was the '90s? do you remember any other obscure artistes?

lishun at 12:00 AM

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