These kids today just have no idea how easy they have it. Oh, what’s that? There won’t be anything left of the planet by the time you hit forty, no one can afford to own a home as a result of corporations buying and hoarding them, and school gun violence is so out of control that you feel vulnerable and helpless because those in authority positions won’t do anything to address the problem? Oh please. Back in my day we had to know the difference between the Hives and the Vines. That shit was way more difficult.
You see, things were way different back in the early 2000s. First, we had regular 9/11. Then there was the other 9/11, which is the day these two bands appeared to debut simultaneously and no one seemed to be able to remember which one was which. For all we knew they were the same band that kept switching their identities back and forth to confuse the general public.
I guess we could’ve used our phones to confirm the IDs of each band online. But by “use our phones,” I mean we had to physically connect our landline to “dial-up” the internet and use Yahoo! as our search engine. I have PTSD just thinking about it.
It was also an era in music that was dominated by the “the” bands. The Hives, the Vines, the Strokes, the Eminem. You try keeping up with that sort of naming convention homogeneity in culture. One time, I even downloaded an MP3 titled “Hateto_Say_I_toldYOUso_THE_VINES” from Napster. Turns out, that one was done by the Hives this whole time. And to think, Napster file names had been so reliable up until that point.
In short, there’s just no way you have it harder today. Confirming bands is easier than ever. And don’t get me started on the whole My Bloody Valentine versus Bullet For My Valentine chaos we went through back then.