When you load up Spotify, a great big chunk of the time you can’t think what to play, right? You default back to your old favourites, those albums and songs you played on repeat when you first discovered you could make them yours.
This isn’t about guilty pleasures; it’s about those songs you’ll still be listening to when you’re old and in your rocking chair. So, enter Teenage Kicks – a playlist series that sees bands running through the music they listened to in their formative years.
Next up, Edith Johnson from Meet Me @ The Altar.
“First off! I would just like to say that I have a Spotify playlist called ‘What Started It All’ that has all of the first emo / pop-punk / metalcore songs I first ever listened to. It’s called ‘What Started It All’ because it highlights all the songs that led me into the “Warped Tour scene”, which then awakened me into realising I wanted to be in a band. I simply fell in love with this music, and these songs changed my life and steered the course of my career and dreams. These are some of the songs that really DID start it all for me.”
Bring Me The Horizon – Can You Feel My Heart
This is the first EVER memory I have of listening to a song in a “harder” genre. I was 14 years old at the time, scrolling my way through Youtube. I saw the video for ‘Can You Feel My Heart’ in the Recommended Videos tab on the side of my computer screen. I clicked on it, not even imagining what it could be. While watching this, my mind was flooded with love and excitement; I just KNEW that I found something special and amazing in every which way. This video and song did change my life! BMTH still reigns one of my ALL TIME FAVOURITE bands of ALL TIME. There is simply no one like them! I get emotional talking about them sometimes because they were the FIRST band that showed me the world of alternative music.
A Day To Remember – Downfall Of Us All
Don’t we all LOVE A Day To Remember? This band was everything to me, and still is. This was one of the first “meshed genre” songs I got into, which gave me comfort and made me even more excited about the scene I was falling in love with. As a young emo who loved pop-punk just as much as they loved harder music, A Day To Remember opened my eyes to the possibilities this scene had to offer. “Downfall Of Us All” is the perfect mix of harder and softer sounds. The mix of pop-punk and metalcore in this song is a MASTERPIECE. Fourteen-year-old Edith had this song on repeat for YEAAARSSS! This song opened my mind to the realisation that pop-punk could sound just as hard as any other heavy genre! This song still stands as one of my favourite songs ever written. (ADTR is also a dream tour for me).
The Word Alive – Life Cycles
For me, this song meant and means a lot. Not only because it was one of the first heavier songs that I heard, but also because of the lyrics. As a punk / emo and passionate kid who would never bend on their beliefs, I really resonated with “I’d die for what I believe, than live a life without meaning.”
Issues – Hooligans
I found this song through ‘Can You Feel My Heart’ by BMTH’S Related Videos tab when I was fourteen! After falling in love with ‘Can You Feel My Heart’, I had to find more like it! FUN FACT: Issues was actually my FIRST EVER show. This was the show, that also started it all for me. It’s the show I realised I wanted to be in a band as well. I was fourteen years old, the lineup was Issues, PVRIS, Bad Seed Rising, and a couple of other Atlanta local bands. This show was also at my favourite venue, The Masquerade, in Atlanta, GA. After that show, my love for the scene and that venue was solidified. I now have a tattoo of The Masquerade logo, and Issues bassist Skyler Accord loves my band! (He quote tweeted our ‘Garden’ video clip on Twitter a couple months ago saying that we were stars.)
Of Mice And Men – The Depths
At fifteen, I actually found Of Mice And Men through Pierce The Veil. This was the first song I heard by them. “The Depths” is a pretty heavy song, so it was the perfect song to itch all my angst! Listening to this song just felt right; I loved it so much and still do. Of Mice And Men still stand as one of my favourite past times, and I’m so happy I found this song and band when I did. It solidified my love for Warped Tour and Warped Tour culture more than anything.
Taken from the December 2021 / January 2022 issue of Upset.
