| jadis |
07-13-2021 10:38 AM |
This reminds me of a guy who became the number one client of a record store my friend was working at, in the last 2-3 of years of the store's existence, so around 2010-2013. This guy was a young cop, very simple-minded but also very sensitive. His fixation was on the 90s as a decade, especially in the context of affirming that it was better than the 80s. It has soon become painfully evident that his obsession wasn't solely about music but about his childhood memories, the last time he was happy and the world made sense to him etc and he just projected all that on a bunch of Eurodance hits he vaguely remembered from that era.
Anyway, my friend had to humor him, including when he would bring printouts of pop charts from 1992 or pose the question "so what do you think is better, the 80s or the 90s" for the seventh or eighth time within the space of 20 minutes. At first it was challenging, cause he couldn't just say "look, when you say 90s what you have in mind is Now That's What I Call Music! whereas to me it's stuff like Bjork, Aphex Twin, Stereolab, Portishead etc".
Except he soon found out that it didn't really matter - the guy would buy literally anything as long as it was released in the 90s. Grunge or dream pop, trance or trip hop, Bjork's Debut or some pathetic novelty record by a Canadian comedian no one's ever heard of, as long as the release date was right.
By the time the store was closing down (as he was among its few remaining clients), he would buy classical records released in the 90s. One I remember for some reason is Mahler's 5th on DG, the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Abbado, recorded in 1995. Nothing he's ever said indicated that he actually enjoyed and appreciated anything other than Vengaboys-level bs, but if it was released in the 90s, he had some kind of an emotional connection to it.
My friend kinda felt bad that the poor guy spent his paycheck in this way and even thought of suggesting to him, "look, you're not a bad-looking guy, maybe try to get some p&ssy instead of poring over ancient hit charts" but I don't think he ever got real with him. I was more concerned that someone entrusted this guy with a firearm, but my friend assured me that he was completely harmless.
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