The Wrong Stuff

 

This morning I caught myself singing The Right Stuff by New Kids on the Block as I did the dishes. I started 'Oh, oh, oh, ohhhhh oh.' so loudly the kids stopped and looked at me. Suddenly I was transported back to 1989, I was in year 7 and it was my turn to be school messenger for the day.

Now, I'm actually not embarrassed by my taste in music. I still like and play most of the tunes I've listened to throughout my whole life. I'm not one to fall for what's popular or in. Except there is this one blip on my music taste that went for about six months in 1989. I started buying Smash Hits every second week on my way to sport. I knew the Top 40 like the back of my hand. I started liking NKOTB. The shame....

This one memory that came flooding back today was me sitting at the desk where the two messengers of the day would sit and be sent out on any errand the school office needed doing. My partner on the job looked at my diary covered in pictures that I'd cut out of Smash Hits. There was Jordan, Donnie, Joey and Donnie (I hated the other one, whose name now escapes me). There were also pictures of a band called Wildland which were actually made up of friends of my brothers, but they had a single out at the time and I thought they were cool. Actually knowing people on the pages of Smash Hits was AMAZING!

At first my messenger buddy was nice and enquired about why I liked NKOTB. He then launched into a rant, bagging out my taste in music, telling me how lame NKOTB were. I, of course, defended my idols and insisted they were indeed musical geniuses. How could they be any else?

These days, that school mate makes a living in the music industry and I, well, I have realised NKOTB may not be the musical geniuses I believed them to be. Thankfully, my taste in music bounced back.

Do you have any embarrassing idols in your music cupboard?