Was anyone else nothing but a compacted ball of angst from ages 13-14? For me, adolescence was a quiet but persistent teenage riot. Eighth grade was the year I learned cynicism and began becoming political, so you can imagine the kind of mental mess I was throughout my early teenhood. I resented my good girl tendencies (not that I regret them now) and constantly wished I could actually let myself say all of the things I was thinking (again, it’s probably better now that I didn’t). Instead, I let music be my outlet. Pretty much everything in my life revolved around it. By 13, I dyed my hair, wore too much eyeliner and refused to wear anything other than band t-shirts, skinny jeans and combat boots. By 14, my hair was purple, I only wore peter pan collared shirts and dresses and I was heavily inspired by Riot Grrrl feminism. Welcome to a musical retelling of my nightmare.
1) “All Apologies” by Nirvana
This was my favorite song when I was 13, so you can imagine what I was going through. I even preferred the ultra-depressing MTV live version linked above over the recorded version. Nirvana was the beginning of my grunge stage, and it didn’t get much better from there. I remember drawing the dead eyed Nirvana smiley logo on all of my binders and naming my oversized cardigans after 90s grunge musicians. I also kept a diary. It was that bad. That being said, I still keep this song close to my heart. The melody feels like something that was etched into my bones before I was even born and if you listen closely, the lyrics are actually kind of hopeful. Maybe that’s why this was my favorite song out of the dozens of arguably more angsty and scream-driven Nirvana songs out there.
2) “Miss World” by Hole
Nirvana was one thing, Hole was another. I started getting into Hole at the end of eighth grade, and it was probably one of the most transforming events in my life. It opened me up to a whole world of Riot Grrrl music and later, into a whole world of feminism. Courtney Love, the lead singer of Hole, was truly the first female artist I ever liked and led me to work on my internalized misogyny. Listening to Hole was also the first time I’d ever heard a woman scream the way male rock artists frequently did, but it felt more real, authentic, and whole than anything I had ever experienced before. Truthfully, almost any early Hole song could have been included in this list to the same effect, but “Miss World” was one of the songs I applied the most feminist analysis to as a young teen. Even at 13, I could recognize Love’s pain as she screamed about the beauty standards and rape culture girls and women are subjected to in our society. I knew what it was like to ache for approval, for validation, for some fucking sympathy as a soon-to-be woman, and only Courtney Love seemed to be able to provide that that for me.
A screenshot of my Tumblr from when I was 14. Why yes, I was going through something, how kind of you to notice!
3) “Shove” by L7
When I was 14, there were quite a lot of things I wanted to shove. Listening to the lyrics now, this song is pretty elementary, but at the time it was reassuring to know that other women also wanted to break out of their complacency and just SHOVE. When you’re 14, pretty much everything seems like a big deal, and this was the one song I could listen to for three minutes and 12 seconds to pretend like I didn’t care. At the same time, this song empowered me to shove when it was actually important, and I carry that with me to this day.
4) “Mono” by Courtney Love
Okay, I know I already talked about Courtney Love, but this song was super important to me too. Mono was part of Love’s (not so successful) post-comeback-comeback attempt. But in my opinion, this song is one of her best. I can now admit that the mechanics of this song aren’t all that brilliant and that some lyrics are pretty meaningless, but to this day I still feel a wave of power when I hear it. Love’s gravelly voice screaming, “No, god you owe me one more song / So I can prove to you that I’m so much better than him” single handedly taught me that as a girl, I had to demand what I wanted, or I’d never get it. I can remember listening to this song for the first time and feeling shocked at Love’s audacity to claim superiority over a man. I was so thankful for all of the lessons Courtney Love taught me that I wrote a research paper about her when I was 14. I wrote, “Some people will try to tell you Courtney Love is a bad role model. People will tell you she’s a screw up and psycho. But if you delve deeper into her past, you’ll see the neglect and abuse and hardships she had to overcome. You’ll see that she got past it all and made a name for herself. You’ll see all the negative situations she transformed into positive ones. Courtney Love may still be a little frickin’ crazy, but with all that she survived, who wouldn’t be?” I might not have been the best writer back then, but I still stand by what I felt as a little freshman in highschool.
5) “The Pretender” by Foo Fighters
I knew this song ever since I was a child when my older brother was into the Foo Fighters, but I didn’t start listening to it myself until I was 13 and made the jump from Nirvana to the Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl, the leader singer of the Foo Fighters was the drummer for Nirvana). As a 13-year-old, I was overly pretentious and fed up with my peers (sometimes justifiably) and this song lent precisely to that feeling. Dave Grohl’s vocals roaring, “What if I say I’m not like the others? / What if I say I’m not just another one of your plays?” made me feel as if someone else understood how alienated I felt from everyone my age, even my best friends. Grohl’s later accusation “You’re the pretender!” reassured me that as much I was struggling to be myself, other kids were phonies too (this emotion was probably a good predictor of my future affinity for The Catcher in the Rye). Today, it still reminds me to stay true to myself (in a less condescending way than I interpreted it in middle school).
I hope you never feel as angsty as I did when I was a young teenager. But on the bright side, if I could survive 2012 with the help of this playlist, you can survive today.
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