Friday, September 22, 2017

Pet Shop Boys - Release - 2001

When this album came out, I was drowning in depression.  DROWNING.  9/11 had just happened, I had quit my job in the heat of passion, my son had just been born, and my wife and I were struggling together.  The depression was the worst.  It was my pre-medicated years, and I would try anything that I came across to self-medicate (use your imagination.)  I hadn't started seeing a shrink yet, and I would come home from work and have this strong urge to go into the kitchen, get out one of my large carving knives, and plunging it down into the suprasternal notch of my neck (look it up.)  I would get tunnel vision a lot and severe panic attacks.  I would curl up in a ball on my knees and scream.  This contributed to, and worked hand in hand with my quitting my job.  And, with 9/11 happening, I had this overwhelming feeling that the world was crashing around me, too.

For this reason, there are specific albums I can no longer listen to.  They remind me too much of that time lost to fear and anxiety.  They take me to a dark place.

But, musically, there was one shining spot of piece for me.  One album that I could listen to that helped calm me, and helped me recuperate.  Obviously, it was PSB's Release, otherwise I wouldn't be telling this story now.

Home and Dry and London, to this day, are two of my most favorite PSB songs.  Samurai In Autumn and You Choose stand out, as well.  It was a very mature and peaceful album that captured the Boys at their best, personally, since Very.  I remember it well, listening to it at home or in my car, and it being snowy, cold and overcast outside.  It would make those dark days more bearable, soothing and warming, even in the dark nights of winter.

Any doubt about my 2001 nightmare, remember these two posts - Here & Here

Anyhow, one of their best, always will be. Remix Discs to come later....


 

6 comments:

  1. Music's often cited as something that inspires, encourages and brings comfort, familiarity. Somethings we forget that it carries with it the other side of human emotion. I'm sure everyone has a playlist that they'd rather leave in the darkest recesses of their HDs...

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  2. We've all had times like that, those dark days when you feel like you're never going to be able to crawl out of the pit you're trapped in. For me, it was the months right after my ex-husband and I were separated. I had caught him cheating on me with a much younger girl (16, to be exact -- he claimed that, at 30, I was "too old" for him because he was only 26, though he knew that I was older when he married me!), and I was pretty devastated to have come home from work sick to catch them in flagrante delicto (in MY bed!). Looking back now, I know that it was a GOOD thing I caught him, because if I hadn't, then I wouldn't have had the strength to leave. It took some therapy and a lot of self-realization to make me see that he had spent the whole time we were together (six years), slowly chipping away at my self-confidence, belittling me, making me feel useless and worthless. And for a while, I actually believed that crap. So even though my experience wasn't anything like yours, I know how it feels to be trapped in that deep dark hole of depression and self-doubt that you feel like you're never going to get out of. I'm glad that we both managed to beat that darkness!

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  3. Thanks for this and everything you do! From a fellow music lover.
    Glad you survived the dark times!
    Michael

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    Replies
    1. Thank you for reading it! Glad to know there are people out there who aren't the "Grab-N-Go" audience, but rather those who care about the entire substance of the blog. It's more of a diary of sorts for me, and any insight or reflection actually helps me process it.

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    2. -= Martin L. Gore =-October 4, 2017 at 7:34 AM

      that's what music is all about: The memories we associate with it, which is also why we tend to no longer care about new music when we get older. We would rather remember our first kiss, a summer vacation, etc.

      Personally, for me, I absolutely LOVE the first 2 albums by PSB and sort of stopped liking their transition into the discoish sound after the first four albums. Bu again, I have nothing but fond memories of the time when those two first albums were released, so I tend to like almost everything around that time.

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