Or maybe just the obscure--the singer/songwriters and bands with good music who were also completely underrated or still in their "dive bar" phase.
But that would be a lie.
A BIG one.
The truth is I cut my teeth on whatever was playing on the local bubblegum pop station (it was the late '90s, after all). The radio waves into my room and car were filled with Backstreet Boys, 'N Sync, and Britney Spears. Occasionally we'd hear something from Alanis Morissette and I would think: God, I am so freaking cool, listening to this. So cutting edge.
But stranger still, I could find a song in just about every genre that I liked. The hymns and Southern gospel from church. The classical music I was learning on piano or would listen to while studying. The country songs my mom would play in her car. The classic rock my dad sometimes listened to in his. Oldies. Forties. Baroque. Broadway. Rap. Psuedo-rap (Weird Al's "Amish Paradise," anyone)?
But if there is one singer who carried me through the brunt of my late teen emo/angst phase--where I loved a million boys who refused to love me in return--it was . . .
(wait for it)
Celine Dion.
Yes.
That Celine Dion.
Especially this album, released in 1997:
You have No. Idea. how many times I played through these songs on any given week as I lamented all of the crushes and loves who were not meant to be (already had a girlfriend, had already placed me solidly in the "friend zone," too old, etc.). A circle of "he loves me's" and "he loves me not's" as I misinterpreted every signal given by every boy I came in contact with.
But what if he loved me?
But what if he loved me?
But what if he loved me?
So I would imagine our love while Celine belted out those high notes in the background, even as the guys' faces changed out from week to week--one "love" after another, after another.
So, yes. Celine Dion accompanied me through my late teen emo years, singing me safely to the end of that disaster.
I am somewhat ashamed.
But somewhat not ashamed at all. :D
Be Brilliant!
(And Happy Friday!)
~Katie~
