It took me a long time to get interested in music when I was younger. I was never one to watch MTV* or know who the latest hot band was (or best unknown band for that matter) and until I got my drivers license, I never listened to the radio.
Case in point, I had no clue who Kurt Cobain was when he died and while my friends were going to see the Smashing Pumpkins,** my first concert was Tom Petty. Most of the crowd was quite a bit older than my little high school gaggle of cheerleaders. (Have I never mentioned I was a cheerleader? Hardcore at that.) With Tom Petty, there are no mosh pits; however, everyone is high. Well, not everyone–I was fourteen and my mother*** had driven us down to Albany…and attended the concert with us.
It wasn’t until about 6 years ago, when I started swing dancing, that I really found my musical niche. Most of the music playing in my home is some form of jazz or opera. That’s not to say I don’t like other types of music, I do. And recently, I’ve been playing some long forgotten favorites on rotation: Depeche Mode, Dido, A Perfect Circle, ABBA Queens of the Stone Age.
One of the songs I seem to be gravitating towards quite a bit is Rufus Wainwright ‘s “Movies of Myself,” which isn’t about having a sex-tape leaked to the media. It’s more about making the decision to enjoy the current moment rather than projecting ourselves into potential futures. Similarly, Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist features a lot of music as teenagers live to extremes where something like a favorite band can be a deal breaker for who you’ll date–but it’s really about not letting your past define you.
There’s the usual joke about being on a therapist’s couch and complaining about how much your parents fucked you up–maybe they wouldn’t let you have some trendy toy or made you miss the school dance to attend your grandfather’s eightieth birthday. As adults, we too often let experiences from when we’re younger dictate how we act and will act. It’s a perpetual excuse that hides the fact that we are too afraid to go after the things we really want in life.
The book is split by chapter, and I’m curious as to whether or not Levithan and Cohn each took a character and focused exclusively on telling that person’s side of the story. Unlike other books that follow a different point of view in each chapter to disclose new facts, Nick and Norah never sound like each other. They retain their own personalities and voices while never degenerating into a cliche.
While Nick and Norah is a little predictable in outcome, a little teenybopper at moments, it did an excellent job of capturing teenage angst, worry, and rebellion. Long removed from that time of my life, I became very entrenched in their story and was impressed that Levithan and Cohn didn’t pander down to teenagers as many young adult book authors do in catering to stereotypes and the superficial.
I outgrew teen and pre-teen (we weren’t tweens back then) pretty quickly–too many were poorly written tripe that assumed people my age wouldn’t appreciate all the things that make for a good story (writing, pacing, plot, character development). While I wasn’t a music fanatic, I think I would have appreciated the book as much back then as I did when reading it a few weeks ago.
*Confession: while I didn’t watch MTV for the music videos or The Real World, I did watch Singled Out–but that was because I had a crush on the host, Chris Hardwick, as well as his Boy Meets World doppelganger, Will Friedle.
** I’d like to point out that I grew up in Vermont and that my high school band teacher was the recording guy for Phish–so most likely my classmates weren’t going to see the Smashing Pumpkins, but rather were traveling across the country following The Greatful Dead.
*** Remember how in my earlier post I made fun of my mother but also said she was pretty cool? This is proof of how cool she is. Not only did she drive us to the concert a good…4? 5? hours away? She also let eight girls crash on her living room floor and then called in to school the next morning to say we were all staying home sick.
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